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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



PUfcPH* 




THE 
MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 



THE MODERN CRISIS 
IN RELIGION 



By 
GEORGE C. LORIMER 

Minister at Madison Avenue Baptist Church 
New York City 




New York Chicago ToROircc 

Fleming H. Revell Company 
London and Edinburgh 



<&> 



Copyright, 1904, by 
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 

{April) 



*> 



LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Copies Received 
APR 21 1904 

Copyright Entry 

CLASS Ol. XXc. No. 
COPY B 



New York: 158 Fifth Avenue 
Chicago: 63 Washington Street 
Toronto: £3 Richmond Street, W 
London: 21 Paternoster Square 
Edinburgh: 30 St. Mary Street 



Dedicated to 

Madison Avenue Baptist Church 

and Congregation 

of the 

City of New York 

with the hope that they may have some 
worthy part in solving 

The Religious Problems 

of the 

Twentieth Century 



Contents 

By Way of Introduction - - - - 9 

I. On Modernizing Christianity - - 13 

II. Decay and Death Conditioning Life and 

Growth ------ 37 

III. The Religious Problem of the City - - 58 

IV. The Redemption of the City - - 82 

V. Christ and the Country Church - 105 

VI. The Church and the Workshop - - 130 

VII. The Arrest of Ethical Progress - - 155 

VIII. The Position and Peril of Protestantism - 180 

IX. The Christianity of Christ - 204 

X. The Crowning Glory of Christianity - 230 

XI. Recovery of the Lost Revelation - - 254 



By Way of Introduction 



WHEN invited by the publishers to furnish a 
volume for the International Pulpit it was with 
me a question whether to select twenty or 
thirty sermons embracing as many diverse topics, or to 
choose a number closely related to each other and dealing 
with one great theme of present interest. For reasons 
that need not be stated here I decided on the latter course. 

Much has been written of late on the signs of religious 
decadence. On both sides of the Atlantic fears have been 
expressed that Christianity has lost for good and all its 
hold on mankind ; and satisfaction, in some quarters, has 
not been disguised that its final collapse is evidently so 
near at hand. 

What the grounds are for these dreary apprehensions 
and for this singular congratulation are not altogether 
clear to the mass of the people. All that they really 
know is that vague statements are current alleging a de- 
cline of faith, accompanied by depressing statistical repre- 
sentations and by accounts of failures and disasters. Their 
information is detached, fragmentary and disconnected, 
and consequently their inferences are not always safe or 
legitimate. 

That there is a crisis in religion, whether the result of 
premature and unwarranted alarm, or the effect of recent 
and reliable investigation, must in all candor be conceded. 
We may ridicule the thought and we may, if we please, 

9 



10 BY WAY OF INTRODUCTION 

dismiss it with an idle laugh. But the subject is one that 
cannot wisely be ignored, and which must sooner or later 
be discussed. It will not down. The issues involved are 
too grave and touch too closely the innermost sanctities of 
thought and feeling for them to be trifled with. What is 
this shadow that has fallen on the religious life of the day ? 
Why these misgivings as to the future of our faith ? Are 
the rumblings heard on every side tokens of an approach- 
ing hour of doom, or only signs of a coming spiritual and 
moral earthquake which shall bring to an end the many 
artificial, superficial, and superstitious things which have 
been built, to the amazement of angels and the detriment 
of men, on Christian foundations ? 

I have brought together several discourses which may at 
least indicate the direction in which we may seek for an- 
swers to these questionings. In some other respects they 
may prove serviceable both to preacher and to layman ; 
and, as the latter is as deeply concerned in the outcome of 
the discussion as the former, I have preserved throughout 
the popular form of pulpit address. 

The sermons which are here printed are not presented 
to the reader as they were originally prepared. They are 
much longer. In preaching, public worship claiming, as 
it should, the larger portion of the time, the preacher, 
ordinarily, is only able to treat in a superficial manner a 
great subject, or he has to break it up in sections and deal 
with them in a succession of addresses. But the necessity 
of these interruptions in the unity and continuity ceases 
when the discourse is transferred to the printed page. 
Then the various parts of the one theme can be advanta- 
geously combined and a measurable degree of complete- 
ness be imparted to the whole. 

This course I have followed in the present volume, with 
the result that each sermon represents the union of two or 



BY WAY OF INTRODUCTION 11 

three, and with the further gain, I think, of greater thor- 
oughness, clearness and cohesion. 

I can only pray that this contribution to the Interna- 
tional Pulpit may serve to remind Christians on both sides 
of the Atlantic that they are confronting similar problems, 
that they are bound together by a common faith, a com- 
mon trial, and a common duty ; and that if they are true 
to themselves and their Lord, they may hope soon to ex- 
claim with the Greek poet : 

" Night is past, behold the day ! " 

Grateful acknowledgment is here made to my fellow 
minister in the Gospel, James M. Stifler, for his kind- 
ness in seeing this book through the press. 

George C. Lorimer. 



The Modern Crisis in Religion 



ON MODERNIZING CHRISTIANITY 

" Until the time of reformation." — Hebrews q : 10. 

RELIGION did not originate with Christianity. It 
existed long before the angels' song sounded 
over the fair Bethlehem land, long before the 
pathetic story of the cross touched the deepest and most 
sacred emotions of humanity, and long before the resurrec- 
tion of a humble peasant preacher confirmed the hope of 
immortality. And where these glad tidings of peace on 
earth, of freedom from sin and deliverance from death 
have not as yet been heard religion still exists, disfigured 
doubtless by many errors, gross superstitions and degrad- 
ing rites, but differentiating man from the brute and relat- 
ing him to the spiritual mysteries of the universe. 

Christianity is the highest expression and truest inter- 
pretation of religion, beyond which there cannot be 
anticipated anything grander or more worthy the homage 
of mankind. When it appeared, that of which it was the 
inspired and loftiest embodiment had reached a serious 
crisis. Religion was in a bad way, as it often had been 
before, not only among the Hebrews but also among the 
Greeks and Romans. It is true that St. Paul in this 
Scripture has exclusively in view the spiritual condition of 

13 



14 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

his kinsmen ; but, with only slight modification, his repre- 
sentations are as applicable to the cults of Babylonian, 
Persian, Syrian, Egyptian, Hellenist. The augurs were 
laughing in each others' faces, the altars of gods innumera- 
ble were being abandoned, the mythologies were being 
accepted at their true value, and many temples were open- 
ing their gates to the lovers of the spectacular and the 
sensual. 

Though this skepticism was not paralleled among the 
Jews, nevertheless various misleading ideas had obtained 
currency that rendered the ancient faith as interpreted by 
them increasingly incredible. Not a few of their leaders 
had fallen into an unwarranted and extreme literalism. 
They had restricted true worship to the Temple ; they 
had come to connect the inner purity of man with the 
blood of slaughtered animals; they had perverted the 
Sabbath from being a joyous day of rest to a dreary day 
of wearisome observances ; and they had multiplied ex- 
actions and burdens which stifled the spiritual life and 
miseducated and debased the conscience. Such perver- 
sions could not continue. For a season the mass of the 
people might hold to them. National pride, race prej- 
udice and religious bigotry might constrain them to de- 
fend what in their sober moments they could not really 
believe. In spite of their loyalty to Moses they were 
anxious for a change. This dissatisfaction is revealed in 
their avidity to hear Christ; and though unrealized by 
them they were on the eve of a stupendous crisis. 

The apostle does not deny the crisis. He recognizes it 
and studies it. He sees that it had its origin in the 
singular infatuation that "meats, drinks and divers wash- 
ings and carnal ordinances" are all sufficient. Straight- 
way, therefore, he proceeds to explain the real object of 
these external observances, shows their insufficiency to 



ON MODEENIZING CHEISTIANITY 15 

cleanse the conscience and reminds the Hebrews that they 
were designed to be of temporary duration — until the time 
of reformation ; and he declares that the reformation 
promised, and certainly needed, had come. 

This reformation was Christianity. 

While in a very real sense Christianity was a new relig- 
ion in the days of St. Paul, in another, following his sug- 
gestion, it was a corrective, a revision and a modernization 
of the old. It met the moral needs and the intellectual 
demands of the times; it resented and resisted the un- 
hallowed caricatures of the holiest of mysteries; and it 
furnished a heavenly and imperishable answer to those 
fantastic and bewildering conceptions which were irrecon- 
cilable with spiritual life and happiness. All the world 
then looked on it as a novelty, as a strange heresy, and 
derided it as a thing of yesterday. 

The centuries have moved onward and our faith is no 
longer young. It is now somewhat scarred and wrinkled 
with age, and its shoulders are a trifle bowed with the 
weight of years. There are also those among us who think 
that Christianity is now over-antiquated, that she is too 
old-fashioned, and that possibly there ought to be done 
for her what she in her youth did for the Jewish religion 
and for the cults of the pagan world. To be more specific 
it is charged that she insists on identifying herself with 
bygone ages, and that she is archaic, mediaeval and hope- 
lessly past the grand climacteric. To remedy this alleged 
superannuation and second childhood, no end of nostrums 
are proposed, from the running of a wood yard to the ap- 
pointment of a theatrical annex, and from the elaboration 
of a ritual to the abbreviation of the sermon, already 
slowly vanishing towards extinction. The demand is for 
progressive churches, for churches adapted to the new 
time, and for churches that are thoroughly modern. 



16 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

The Church has gone far in this direction during the 
past hundred years, notwithstanding the critics to the 
contrary. It may be that she has not gone far enough ; 
but to overlook what she has done is inexcusable. Were a 
consensus of opinion taken, I am sure that her leaders, 
from the Pope to the Archbishop of Canterbury, and from 
the Archbishop to the unprelatical captains of Noncon- 
formity, would agree that she ought to be in touch with 
her age, and ought, as far as right and truth will allow, to 
conform her thought to the advanced thinking of the 
schools and not to cling to embarrassing and non-essential 
antiquated notions and policies. 

But even this may be overdone. There is some appre- 
hension that its legitimate bounds have been transgressed 
already, and we are naturally led to inquire to what de- 
gree, and in what manner should we consent to 

The Modernizing of Christianity. 

As in the Jewish faith a serious crisis reigned when John 
the Baptist declared that the axe was laid at the root of 
the tree, so now Christianity is passing through another, 
and one, if not equally momentous, sufficiently grave to 
occasion considerable solicitude. It cannot be denied by 
any one conversant with the facts that there is such a 
crisis. The most superficial acquaintance with current 
literature will convince the extremest optimist that in the 
estimation of the public, religion, particularly of the evan- 
gelical type, is contending against fierce odds and does 
not seem to have vitality enough to maintain its authority 
and influence. 

It is claimed that there are signs of disintegration and 
final collapse ; that the churches are full of half-hearted 
members who never permit their religion to interfere with 
their business or pleasure ; that the ministry is not calling 



ON MODERNIZING CHRISTIANITY 17 

to its ranks men of the highest ability ; that education is 
rapidly superseding the function of preaching ; that clergy- 
men themselves avoid discussing doctrine or only with 
faltering breath reaffirm the distinctive teachings of the 
faith ; that the Bible is no longer what it was, an unim- 
peached and trustworthy Teacher ; that supernatural con- 
version is slowly giving way to the rationalistic theory of 
evolution; that many congregations are chronically im- 
pecunious and that worshippers do not give to the cause of 
Christ in proportion to their expenditures in other direc- 
tions ; and that there prevails almost everywhere through- 
out Christendom an air of apathy and indifference, of 
skepticism and agnosticism. 

Assuredly there is a crisis. It prevails without as well 
as within, and probably it exists in the world because it is 
manifest in the church. The neglected sanctuaries, the 
desecrated Sabbaths, the increase of theatres, and the de- 
structive critical spirit of many writers, all clearly indicate 
that if Christianity is not involved in a struggle for exist- 
ence, she is so beset behind and before with difficulties 
that her survival if she survives will be preeminently the 
survival of the fittest. But is it possible for her to come 
out of the conflict as she went in ? Is it not more than 
likely that she will be modified by the very troubles 
through which she is passing ? This is always the case in 
nature. The animal strives, and the strife evolves a 
stronger sense or a greater capacity, and perhaps a new 
organ or a new energy. So will it be in religion. 

Christianity is being influenced, colored, shaped for 
good or evil by her contact with the modern world, by her 
environment and by the various conflicts in which she is 
engaged. She is being in a sense modernized, whether 
she chooses to be or not. It is for her to determine 
whether she will yield absolutely, become as clay in the 



18 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

hand of the potter, and take that form which is imparted 
to her, and which may rob her of every semblance of her 
real self, or whether she will awake to the significance of 
the hour, decide to modernize herself, and do so in such a 
way as to retain her identity and yet regain her hold on 
mankind. 

If Christianity is to do this intelligently she must famil- 
iarize herself with the zeit geist or time-spirit, must under- 
stand its peculiar character, and adjust herself to it accord- 
ing to its favorable or unfavorable action on the funda- 
mental verities of religion. 

What is meant by the time-spirit ? 

Hegel has defined it as "the Spirit of God realizing 
itself in the history of man." This is rather the Eternal 
Spirit manifesting itself in time, whereas the term we em- 
ploy suggests a product of time unfolding itself in the earth 
and in the history of its peoples. 

As the surface of the globe reflects its own heat and 
tempers the atmosphere, as the sum total of the stars 
creates a soft and interfused light which imparts a silver 
haze to the canopy of night ; as flowers sweeten the air 
with their breath, and deep morass and tropic jungle 
exhale their deadly malarias, so from ruling ideas, ideals, 
ambitions, habits, customs, there arises at each distinct 
period of history a temper, a way of thinking, acting, 
feeling, a subtle emanation from the totality of the world's 
mental and moral tendencies, which, for lack of a better 
name, we call the time-spirit. 

This spirit may be devout, rationalistic, superstitious, 
reverent, chivalrous and romantic, or it may be specula- 
tive, scientific, commercial and sensuous. It may regard 
the universe as the temple of God to be filled with holy 
thoughts and heroic deeds, or it may treat it simply as a 
theatre where everything is fictitious and designed to 



ON MODERNIZING CHRISTIANITY 19 

satisfy the senses. Whatever its character, however, it 
stands to reason that it will in some degree affect religion 
and the esteem in which it is held. As well expect a sail- 
ing ship not to be influenced by the weather or an orchard 
to be untouched by the frost, as to suppose that the church 
can remain wholly intact and inviolate through the varying 
moods of the ages. A change of climate will lead to a 
change of attire and often of diet, and will relax or stimu- 
late physical energy. 

The variation of temperature will modify the tone of 
violin or organ, and will occasionally cause a compass to 
point in a wrong direction. Likewise the time-spirit may 
depress or quicken the energies of the church, may impel 
her to alter or abandon her ritualistic draperies, may in- 
cline her to a new outlook on life, and may, so to speak, 
constrain her to sail on a fresh tack, or to sail earthward 
in answer to an uncertain compass instead of keeping 
steadfastly towards heaven. She may be likened to the 
North Cape. That point of land, reaching out into Arctic 
seas, bold, jagged, ragged, beneath the hybernal midnight 
sun, is not wholly bleak and savage ; for the Gulf Stream 
flows through the chilly waters, surges against the granite 
base, and tempering with warmth the atmosphere, adorns 
and beautifies its sides with soft grasses, stubby bushes 
and modest flowers. No less susceptible is the church to 
her surroundings and to the streams of influence that may 
clothe her with loveliness, or may blight and wither her 
fairest graces. 

But in recognizing the potency of the time-spirit and in 
yielding to its legitimate demands, she is not warranted in 
surrendering herself absolutely and without question to its 
moulding force. It is not inspired, not infallible. There 
are eras and occasions when it needs to be resisted. The 
church is not necessarily bound to deride it, antagonize it 



20 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

and cling to thoughts and speech as foreign to an age as a 
caravel for an Atlantic voyage, pine torches for illumina- 
tion and the flashing of beacon lights from hilltops for 
telegraphy. She may act as absurdly as a man who, ex- 
posed to torrid heat, declines to remove his furs, or as the 
mariner who in the teeth of the storm scuttles his ship 
rather than sail under bare poles. Such foolish conserva- 
tism is childish. On the other hand, however, she may be 
so enamored of the time-spirit as to have no mind of her 
own, and in her hot zeal to eliminate from her theology 
and her methods everything alien to it may cease to be 
Christian. If the time-spirit lends itself to a truer, saner, 
sweeter, grander, broader type of Christianity, its minis- 
trations are to be welcomed, but if its free operation would 
leave no Christianity whatever, then an intelligent and 
earnest challenge must be interposed. 

How far, then, and in what particulars is the church 
bound to respect the time-spirit ? Or, to phrase it differ- 
ently, in what ways and within what restrictions is the 
modernizing process allowable ? What is permissible and 
what is not ? What may be yielded and what retained 
and cherished ? The importance of these inquiries grows 
out of the fact that the impression prevails that the present 
religious crisis can only be ended by the most radical 
changes. That some changes are imperative we nothing 
doubt, and that they may in some measure meet the exist- 
ing crisis we cheerfully allow. But what are the changes 
needed? Within what limits are they desirable and 
feasible ? 

In considering these questions I can only, in this pre- 
liminary sermon, advance certain elementary principles, 
the application of which will receive more detailed exposi- 
tion as we come in subsequent discourses to deal with 
specific aspects of the crisis we are studying. 



ON MODERNIZING CHRISTIANITY 21 

Christianity should modernize her speech. Now, as on 
the day of Pentecost, every man has the right to hear the 
gospel in the current language of the day, and the folly of 
talking in an unknown tongue is as pronounced now as 
when St. Paul condemned it. There is nothing sacred in 
vocabularies, and to insist on using antiquated phraseology 
when grave issues are being discussed is a mischievous 
blunder. Neither the common people, nor hardly any other 
people, will attend church if the preacher is obscure and 
unintelligible. There is point in the criticism uttered by 
the Scotch Elder that "his minister was invisible all the 
week and incomprehensible all the Sunday." Obsolete 
terms, traditional cant, cryptic sayings, and the so-called 
"language of Zion," should be steadily avoided. The 
idiom of the street and field, the words that are in com- 
mon use among all classes and conditions of men, should 
be sanctified to the cause of truth and enlightenment. 

The apostles took the Greek tongue as it was spoken in 
the first century and made it the vehicle of glorious ideas ; 
and if that could be done with such a medium it must be 
comparatively easy to clothe these same ideas in the ver- 
nacular of our times. Religion should do what King 
James's revisers did, — translate the eternal message into 
the ordinary speech of the masses. This does not warrant 
the use of slang by which public discourse is often de- 
graded, nor the affectation of extreme classicism by which 
vigor and clearness are often sacrificed. The vulgarity of 
coarseness on the one hand and the showiness of super- 
fineness on the other is almost equally fatal to real power. 
Educated people are shocked by the first, and the un- 
taught are roused to ribald mockery by the second, while 
neither class is instructed, moved or interested. I am 
inclined to the belief that the average church attendant 
fails less in comprehending the theological dialectics of the 



22 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

orthodox pulpit than he does in grasping the significance 
of the finical, fanciful and finely filtrated speech which in 
certain religious schools seems to be more highly valued 
than ideas. 

Modernity in language which the zeit geist demands 
does not call for silly fastidiousness and foppery in style, 
neither does it prohibit the employment of virile Scripture 
terms, such as "justification," "adoption," "regenera- 
tion," or "atonement." There is a place for such ex- 
pressions. They have been objected to, but only where 
the conceptions they represent have been challenged or 
repudiated. That is, the objection lies not so much 
against the terminology as against what it stands for. Nor 
is it at all difficult of comprehension. Something is surely 
to be expected of the learner. When science speaks it 
assumes that the scholar will give attention and try to 
follow the teacher. Technical words may be avoided as 
far as possible, but some, at least in modified form, must 
be introduced for the sake of accuracy and clearness. So, 
likewise, in religion. But the student must do some 
thinking on his own account. He cannot divest himself 
of his responsibility as set forth by Christ : "Take heed 
how ye hear." 

The Rev. Canon Newbolt a few months ago declared 
that "if it be true that sermons are a failure and that the 
ministry of preaching is losing favor, the cause of that 
failure is in the hearer rather than in the preacher." He 
illustrated his position by the parable of the "Seed," and 
showed "that in three cases out of four that seed will be 
wasted ; only the fault is not in the sower but in the soil." 
"Think of it, when you criticise the sermon over your five 
o'clock tea — when you say, I never heard a sermon in my 
life which did me any good, and sigh for their general 
abolition, Think of it ; there was nothing the matter with 



ON MODERNIZING CHRISTIANITY 23 

the seed ; the sower did his best, but in three cases out of 
four the character of the soil was such that it was so much 
labor thrown away." 

The canon may have pushed his comparison too far, 
yet there is real ground for his complaint. Congregations, 
I fear, have been encouraged to regard themselves as mere 
receptacles into which the teacher is to pour his discourse. 
They do not feel themselves bound to cooperate with the 
preacher. If he can enlighten them, thrill them, absorb 
their interest, let him do so. But they are not inclined to 
assist him. No wonder, then, that to such stolid indiffer- 
ence and apathy the shortest sermon is tedious and the 
most brilliant dull and meaningless. 

Christianity, likewise, should modernize her thought. I 
do not say that she should abandon it, corrupt it, hide it, 
or in any way betray it. She can preserve it practically 
intact, and yet by rendering it less antiquated commend it 
to the time-spirit of the twentieth century. 

Balfour in his Cambridge address declares that "no 
century has seen so great a change in our intellectual 
apprehension of the world in which we live " as the nine- 
teenth. That is, he maintains that a new conception has 
been reached which stands in the same relation to our age 
as that of Galileo and Bacon to the seventeenth century. 
This fundamental change in our point of view is quite 
sufficiently expressed by the term "evolution." Renan 
refers to its radical character when he says : "It consists 
in the substitution of the category of evolution for the 
category of being ; formerly everything was considered as 
being; people spoke of law, of religion, of politics, of 
poetry in an absolute fashion. Now, everything is con- 
sidered as in process of formation." We are not, we are 
becoming, and nothing is final, only proximate and moving 
towards finality. 



24 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

It is impossible to deny that this is the dominating 
hypothesis of the modern world. Is it possible for Chris- 
tianity to adjust her great thought or thoughts to it ? Can 
she reveal her true self through it and speak its language ? 
The impulsive answer is negative, and yet the Edinburgh 
Review reminds us that "the doctrine of development, 
treated years afterwards in the physiological order by 
Darwin, was anticipated in a theological treatise." It may 
safely be said that Mohler and Newman would never have 
committed themselves to a principle unreconcilable with 
the essential teachings of the faith. That a case of an- 
tagonism can be made out I do not dispute, but that it 
necessarily and actually exists I do not concede. As Mr. 
Stephens has said on the limitations of evolution : " Man 
is still in the presence of infinity and eternity, life is a long 
dream. Heaven and hell are behind the veil of phe- 
nomena, which at every step, one finds vanish into the vast 
abyss of ever present mystery;" and he has the same 
burdens to carry, the same sins to resist, the same tempta- 
tions to encounter, and the same death to die. Christian- 
ity is still the only power that can support and guide him 
in his struggle, and in the end afford him a safe footing 
over the abyss. 

Why not, then, cast the ancient thought in this new 
mould ? Why not enunciate it in the speech of current 
science and philosophy? Why continue to state it in 
terms obsolete to the period or unnecessarily divorce it 
from the loftiest speculations of the age ? To modernize 
it after this fashion would be to gain for it a larger and 
more sympathetic hearing, and would in my opinion bring 
out undreamed of spiritual beauties. 

Christian thought thus modernized would no longer re- 
gard creation as a fiat but as a process, a process continu- 
ing to this day, and the Creator as immanent as well as 



ON MODERNIZING CHRISTIANITY 25 

transcendent ; as the cause, not only of beginnings, but of 
the entire series of sequences. This idea rebukes the 
fanaticism that fails to see God outside the exceptional 
and extraordinary ; and makes more distinct the great fact 
that he is so actually in the working of every natural law 
that it seems to be the rule of his providence for the super- 
natural to be swallowed up and become incarnated in the 
natural ; and that this method is as glorious to him as any 
number of startling, sporadic marvels. When the old 
thought is placed in this new setting we perceive that it is 
only in accord with the divine order of things for miracles 
to cease as man's intelligence and capacity increase, and 
for all supernatural interpositions, whether in the soul or in 
life, in the way of revelation or a regeneration, to be 
effected through human means and agencies. 

More than this, the concession to the time-spirit for 
which I plead, will make it plainer that man is the end of 
a series of developments and is necessary to explain the 
universe as a whole, and in a sense is not, but only is be- 
coming ; that he must pass through the new birth and the 
grave in order to attain eternal fullness of life. Instead of its 
obscuring the function of suffering in the progress of man- 
kind, it will make manifest that pain and anguish are the 
price paid for every gain attained in the realm of physics 
or of spirit. The history of creation is besmeared with 
blood, as the history of humanity is, and evolution does 
not darken the atoning efficacy of Christ's death, but rather 
has placed it in a truer and sublimer light. For, as Presi- 
dent Hyde has said : "Vicarious suffering is not an arbi- 
trary contrivance by which Christ bought a formal pardon 
for the world. It is a universal law, of which the cross of 
Christ is the symbol. It is the price some one must pay 
for every step of progress and for every conquest over evil 
the world shall ever see." It is the climax of a divine 



26 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

method, and the modern view of it renders more credible 
the assumption of faith, that as the sufferings of a man are 
of higher value and achieve higher ends than the sufferings 
of an animal, so the passion of Christ — a being, excep- 
tional, unique, glorious, divine, — may be expected to ac- 
complish more and more wonderfully than the sufferings 
of a man. 

Christianity ought further to modernize her activities. 
I believe she is increasingly anxious to do so. Special 
lines of action are determined for her usually by the age, 
and means and methods are frequently suggested by what 
appeals to the common sense and taste of society. Here 
again the time-spirit is in evidence, and while it is not to 
be slavishly heeded, it often indicates what is the duty at 
hand, and how best it can be discharged. There was an 
era when the time-spirit was so coarse, animalistic and 
cruel, that the church tried to live her life of holiness in 
the desert. There was a period when it was so supersti- 
tious, violent and reactionary, so priest-ridden and oppress- 
ive, that she took up arms against herself and gave to the 
nations the Reformation. There also was a season so 
cursed with chattel slavery, so blighted by ignorance and 
so merciless to childhood that she was compelled to thunder 
her anathemas from the pulpit against the tyrants great and 
small, rich and poor. Her activities have varied and have 
been various, but always permeated with the sweet spirit 
of love. Her methods, measures, means, have been, and 
ever should be, adapted to the peculiar conditions of the 
age and place in which she works. " New occasions teach 
new duties," and she, with open eyes for the vision, should 
not hesitate to employ whatever legitimate weapons are 
within her reach. 

The indisposition to do this in former times — and to 
some extent to-day — accounts in part for the present relig- 



ON MODERNIZING CHRISTIANITY 27 

ious crisis. Let this hesitancy cease. Christianity is in 
a new world, a world very different from that of the first 
century, or the sixteenth, and if she would be successful 
she must not ignore the fact. Not long ago the time-spirit 
was romantic, when Frederick Schlegel idealized the past, 
when Napoleon regarded himself as a new Charlemagne, 
when Chateaubriand embodied in his " Atala " the romance 
of Christianity, and when Overbeck and the pre-Raphael- 
ites revived in their pictures the mysticism of Fra Angelico. 
The curtain speedily fell on this painted scene. Sentimen- 
talism went out of date and hard realism usurped the 
stage, the realism of hard facts, figures, and statistics in 
society, and of the brutal nakedness of Zola, Verlaine, 
Ibsen and Nietzsche in literature. Mankind has entered 
on a season of disenchantment and disillusion. Religion 
is being judged by what it does, not by what it claims to 
be ; and by what it does to-day, not by what it may have 
done yesterday. That church which by its offices deepens 
the moral life of the community, that carries most of hope 
and joy to the lowly, that reclaims wanderers from God 
and duty will surely attain to primacy in the new century. 
The picturesque, the histrionic, the archaeological features 
of religion, and the controversies about " orders," "suc- 
cession," "vestments," are not foremost in the thoughts 
of serious men to-day, and their prominence anywhere, 
with the noisy strife to which occasionally they give rise, 
strikes the modern mind as sounding brass and clanging 
cymbal in a world that is perishing for love. 

Nor should it be forgotten that the present time-spirit is 
also liberalistic and altruistic. Back of the flagrant wrongs 
that are hourly committed, back of the greed, cunning, 
selfishness, harshness and bitterness of the age, there is a 
deep spirit of humanism unparalleled in the past. The 
same hand that squeezes the laborer and doles out a paltry 



28 THE MODEEN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

wage, binds up his wounds, founds a library, or furnishes 
him with a hospital. Injustice may reign, but it is won- 
derfully tempered by benevolence. The tendency is to 
judge leniently, to make allowances, to abate prejudices, 
to treat dispassionately differences of opinion, and to 
glorify heroism and self-sacrifice. These amiable features 
of the period are undoubtedly contradicted at every turn, 
but their frequent recurrence and the homage they receive 
may be taken as proof that the nobler side of man's nature 
recognizes their right to supremacy. And as to the church 
— society expects that they will preeminently grace her, 
that in her life they will receive the amplest expression, 
and in her work the fullest exemplification. It is not 
enough for her theoretically to assent. She must do more. 
It is for her to find out in what way she can give practical 
force to modern humanism, and by what means she can 
intensify it and free it from its mixture with things mer- 
cenary and base, and, in a word, transform the time-spirit 
into the very spirit of her blessed Master. 

This is no easy task. It is one beset with peril. At 
every step of the way, at every stage of the process, the 
danger is that we may be carried too far by our enthusiasm 
for modernity, and may irreparably disfigure and deface 
that which we are anxious to strengthen and exalt. Let 
me, therefore, point out some restrictions, some limitations, 
which may guard us from the excesses and from the ex- 
travagances that scandalize and vitiate the movement we 
are commending. 

Christianity must be careful not so to modernize herself 
as to obscure her distinctive character. She is of the 
heavens, heavenly, and has no business to become earthy. 
It is no more necessary for her to be untrue to herself than 
it is for a man to be false to his deepest convictions. She 
is not to masquerade in the world's tinsel and finery for 



ON MODERNIZING CHRISTIANITY 29 

the sake of influence and applause. Never is she to for- 
get her supernatural origin and her dependence on the 
supernatural still. He who is immanent in nature cannot 
but be peculiarly so in the church. Indeed, the normal 
life of the church should render clearer and more incon- 
trovertible His presence and influence in all His works. 
The physical universe may be likened to a watch, where 
the mechanism and the mainspring are concealed by the 
case, and where only the hands are visible giving evidence 
by their movement of the active force within. The spirit- 
ual world should be like a watch placed under a glass 
cover, through which every wheel, every jewel, every deli- 
cate part is distinctly disclosed. 

The church should not, therefore, hesitate to teach, that 
as the supernatural antedated what we call creation and 
wrought itself into natural forces and natural laws, so the 
same supernaturalism begins the individual religious life 
and relates it to fixed principles of thought and activity to 
which it is to conform. Prayer is the breath of this new 
life, and when religious communities seek to ignore it, or 
to explain away its significance, consequently neglecting 
the family altar and sneering at the prayer-meeting as out 
of date, the real character of Christianity is fatally ob- 
scured. For outside of the church, deep in the heart of 
humanity, there is a feeling that a religion which disclaims 
any real and direct relation to the invisible, and differs 
only from other institutions by the higher ethics it incul- 
cates, cannot be entitled to very serious attention. 

The extent of this feeling has been strikingly illustrated 
of late in the declining power of the most advanced evan- 
gelism. That protracted meetings of recent date have not 
justified the expectations of their promoters cannot be suc- 
cessfully denied. Many explanations have been given the 
public, but these have lacked the element of conviction. 



30 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

In the older time conversion and salvation were repre- 
sented in terms which called forth the profoundest emo- 
tions, and appealed to the religious consciousness of the 
people. Excesses we admit were not uncommon. But 
the spiritual experiences of the day were so deep and 
vivid that they left a lasting impression ; and they invested 
religion itself with a seriousness and weightiness which 
more than compensated for any incidental vagaries. The 
change that has taken place, originating probably in a 
desire to make salvation easy, and to avoid the extremes 
into which certain frenetical evangelicals were falling, has 
been of the most radical and regrettable kind. 

To this Professor George Adam Smith refers in his 
" Life of Henry Drummond." After describing the really 
great work in Scotland of Mr. Dwight L. Moody, he takes 
up the men who followed him and who tried to imitate 
him. He has very little patience with them, advocating, 
as they do, what he terms an " artificial scheme of salva- 
tion." " They whittle away," he says, " one after another 
of the essentials of faith, and call man to a reception of 
salvation in which there is neither conscience nor love. In 
their extremity they likened the acceptance of Christ to the 
taking of a five-pound note offered you for nothing, or of a 
glass of water, or of an orange." He adds: "Religion 
turned out to be a big confidence trick" — "and to a 
Scotchman a religion without conscience is beneath con- 
tempt." 

In this respect other people are very much like Scotch- 
men. For a season they may listen to teachers who deal 
in a free and easy way with the mysteries of our faith. 
They may be charmed by the novelty of their views, and 
try to look as though they had been transformed by the 
truth. The craze does not last long. It ends abruptly. 
Converts discover that after all the root of the matter is 



ON MODERNIZING CHRISTIANITY 31 

not in them. The sober second thought of the community 
looks more thoroughly into this theological legerdemain, 
and puts it away with something very much like scorn. It 
will not do. It misrepresents and falsifies the genius of 
our faith, and so disguises it that practically it is unrecog- 
nizable. 

Christianity ', while preserving her character, must be 
mindful not so to modernize herself as to conceal her essen- 
tial message. There are many truths which she holds in 
common with other cults. She may, as I think she does, 
carry them farther and unfold them more completely than 
has been done by her rivals and forerunners. Neverthe- 
less, she is at one with them in several philosophical and 
ethical elementary principles, and these she is under obli- 
gation to inculcate. Here and there we meet with literary 
men that have never given much thought to the subject, 
and a number of clever secularists that have no apprecia- 
tion of spiritual things, who insist that the age has out- 
grown all religious teachings except those pertaining to 
conduct in the present world, and that the church should 
confine her ministrations to these. Our advisers pretend 
to speak for the age. And yet out of 450,000,000 professed 
Christians in the world only a handful have adopted this 
way of thinking. The views of the outside multitudes, if 
they have any, are hardly entitled to consideration, as 
they are too absorbed in their temporal interests for any 
value to attach to their opinion. Nor is this recommenda- 
tion new. It has often been made, and sometimes it has 
been acted upon; but never with encouraging results. 
Plainly stated, it is the programme of failure. Why should 
it be adopted when it has nothing to show for itself? 
Why experiment anew with what has never succeeded in 
renewing and saving humanity and never can ? 

The church is bound to give to these universal teach- 



32 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

ings their due place and proportion; but she is under 
special obligation to magnify and make clear what is unique 
and original in her message. This message is quite suf- 
ficiently expressed by Christ in His memorable words : 

" For God so loved the world that He gave His only 
begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not 
perish, but have eternal life. For God sent not the Son 
into the world to judge the world ; but that the world 
should be saved through Him." 

This is something more than morality. It is life, par- 
don, a complete clearance and the beginning of real right- 
eousness. 

A writer as radical as Prof. Paul Wernle of Basel, 1 
while apparently rejecting the atonement, regards forgive- 
ness as really central and vital to our faith. He refers to 
the place it occupied in Jewish theology, and quotes ad- 
miringly the splendid sixth petition : 

" Forgive us, our Father, 

For we have sinned. 
Forgive us, O King, 

For we have done unrighteously. 

Dost Thou not forgive and pardon gladly ? 
Praised be Thou, Lord, most merciful, 

That Thou dost pardon so greatly." 

Further, he represents Jesus as confirming and enlarging 
this conception. " He turned the theory contained in the 
Jewish prayer into a fact, and gave to all that were about 
Him the certainty of pardon, courage and joy. . . . 
Jesus has made it perfectly plain that the child of God is 
separated by no sin from God's love, as little as the child 
of an earthly father from that father's love." . . . 
"Nay, more, man would cease to be in the right relation 
to God were he ever to forego his claim upon the divine 
1 " Beginnings of Christianity," p. 108. 



ON MODERNIZING CHRISTIANITY 33 

pardon. These are bold articles to put in any creed, yet 
they are only fraught with danger for those who know not 
the God of Jesus. ' ' 

It is remarkable, however, that so brilliant a writer, in- 
terpreting the sacred documents as he would any other re- 
liable documents penned by honest men, and reaching this 
conclusion, should have failed to read what is with equal 
legibility affirmed, that through " the blood " of Christ we 
attain to this forgiveness. If on the authority of the gos- 
pels and epistles — simply as human products — we be- 
lieve in pardon, on the same authority we should believe 
in atonement. They are two terms of the same message, 
and without both the message is incomplete and faulty. 
Wernle himself admits that pardon as taught by the He- 
brews was inoperative to pacify the conscience. " What 
was the use of fine words if the individual had no sense of 
personal certainty, and was unable to derive thence the 
power to live a glad and joyous life." How then was it 
possible for Christ by the mere use of " fine words," — and 
remember that there are no words of His on the subject as 
fine as those attributed to prophets in the Old Testament — 
to satisfy the moral sense and purge away the misery of 
guilt? He must have introduced into the proclamation 
something new. What ? 

There is only one answer possible: — Death, sacrifice, 
blood, an offering made once for all in the end of the old 
ages for the redemption of the world. The knowledge of 
it and faith in it were needed in the past ; they are needed 
still ; and impotent and faithless the Christian message 
whenever its significance is minimized or lost. St. Paul 
gloried in the cross ; and it will be a bitter day for hu- 
manity when the church shall hide it, apologize for it, and 
explain away its only possible meaning as though it were 
her shame. 



34 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

Christianity, finally, must be heedful not so to modern- 
ize herself as to becloud her supreme object. She is being 
told by tongues innumerable to-day what her real business 
on earth is. Eloquent individuals who have never studied 
her traditions, and who have no appreciation of her genius, 
are trying to convince her that she is only a social and 
moral imperialism whose mission it is to conquer the ine- 
qualities, the injustices, the insincerities and indecencies 
of society. She is told by one clique that her true pro- 
gramme is the socialistic propaganda \ by another she is 
informed that she ought to stand by Labor Unions ; by 
another that her duty lies in the direction of municipal re- 
form agitation, and by yet another that her chief concern 
should be how to exploit the philanthropic rich for the ben- 
efit of the poor. All of them call on her not to be vision- 
ary, but to be practical, it being quietly taken for granted 
that that alone is practical which promotes improved hous- 
ing for the lowly, better sanitation and fewer hours of 
work, and that that is necessarily visionary which seeks the 
renewal of humanity in the image of God and the devel- 
opment of its loftiest and most self-reliant qualities. 

That the church should strive for social amelioration, 
that she should do her utmost to improve temporal con- 
ditions, and that she should antagonize each specific evil 
and wrong of the time is cheerfully conceded. But she 
has a programme of her own. While she may give her 
support to special measures of reform and should always 
do so when they are sound, it is her plan and purpose to 
begin, not on the surface but at the roots of things, not on 
the effects but on the causes, not on the external crystalli- 
zation and organization of human infirmity and moral 
weakness, but on the internal — on the heart from whence 
they spring. Her theory is : Cleanse the sources and the 
river will be pure ; maintain the power in the power-house 



ON MODERNIZING CHRISTIANITY 35 

and traffic will keep on the move; supply and fill the 
reservoir and the homes of the citizens will not lack for 
water. This is her supreme object. Hence, her belief in 
spiritual renewals ; hence her confidence in education ; and 
hence her constant and varied endeavors to get at the indi- 
vidual, at his conscience, his better nature and every ele- 
ment of his being that can be enlisted on the side of per- 
sonal honor and rectitude. 

The church has no captious controversy with other 
schemes. She only claims the right to have one of her 
own. Neither does she decline to support any righteous 
measure for social improvement ; but she is, or she ought 
to be, unwilling to abandon her particular plan of action, 
and descend to the level of a mere follower, tramping at 
the heels of all kinds of social agitators. 

At the Paris Exposition a few years ago some friends 
invited me to see the artistic fireworks and illuminations. 
The scene was striking, gorgeous and picturesque. I was 
immensely taken, as were the crowds, with the manifold 
effects wrought by red and blue fire, by the flaming of rock- 
ets and bursting of the explosives. The gardens, statuary, 
booths, cafes, were fantastically illuminated, and often the 
faces of the people shone with singular distinctness. In- 
fluenced by a sudden impulse my eyes wandered from the 
carnival of light to the heavens where the stars were 
shining in their solemn splendor. At once the contrast 
between the evanescent pageant around me and the steady, 
impassive glory above affected me profoundly. The f6te 
was not useless, it served an immediate end, it brought 
into relief many beauties and imparted a joy to many hearts. 
But its fires would soon be quenched, and its flames die 
away. Not so with the stars. How incomparably grander 
this noiseless stellar host to these poor sputtering, garish 
pyrotechnics ! When these have ceased to dazzle and de- 



36 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

light, the stars will still be shining, and will through 
countless ages continue to do what no fireworks can 
accomplish, — guide the doubting traveller on the mountain- 
side, and the disheartened sailor on the sea, and draw the 
thoughts of men into fellowship with Him whose glory 
they proclaim, and whose soundless voice they are. 

Does this simple analogue call for labored exposition ? 
Does it need a master in Israel to understand this thing ? 
There are many lights enkindled by human hands and 
many momentary flashes of human sympathy that brighten 
the world and bring gladness to the lowly. Every Chris- 
tian man will cheerfully approve and help whatever tends 
to convert the night into day. But he must know how 
ephemeral these specific remedies are. They come of the 
time-spirit, and they will change with the time-spirit. 
Nor is it possible for them to supersede the steadfast 
shining of the "Morning Star," the effulgence of the 
Christ streaming through the church, by which the sinful 
and sorrowing are reached and saved, and by which, at 
last, when all poor human measures fail, they are led 
triumphantly through the valley of the shadow of death to 
the eternal fellowship of the saints in light. 

Within limitations such as these it is not only legitimate 
for Christianity to modernize herself, but for the sake of 
her mission she should do so. 



II 

DECAY AND DEATH CONDITIONING LIFE 
AND GROWTH 

" Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a grain of wheat fall into 
the earth and die, it abideth by itself alone ; but if it die, it beareth 
much fruit." — John 12 : 24. 

IT was the hour of apparent triumph. Although the 
procession was an impromptu, humble affair, and a 
patient ass, palm branches and tumultuous hosannas 
a poor substitute for war chariots of iron, for tramping 
lictors and marching legions welcoming a victorious 
Caesar, nevertheless, such as it was it doubtless filled the 
souls of the disciples with exultant hopes and with visions 
of their hero ruling in majesty over the kingdoms of the 
world. Indeed, they were not the only ones deceived by 
the enthusiasm of the hour. When the Pharisees wit- 
nessed the ovation our Lord received as He entered the 
city of Jerusalem, they spitefully exclaimed : " Behold, we 
prevail nothing; lo, the world is gone after Him." 

Certain Greeks, likewise, gave color to this impression. 
When the excitement was at its height they separated 
themselves from the surging, singing crowds, and ap- 
proaching Philip, expressed a wish to see Jesus. It must 
have seemed to our Lord's bewildered followers that the 
predictions of the prophets were being fulfilled, and that 
nations were already coming to His light, and kings to the 
brightness of His rising. These Hellenists must be the 
first-fruits of the Gentiles, the advance guard and har- 

37 



38 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

bingers of the hosts redeemed from heathenism. Surely 
the completion of the promise will be witnessed in a little 
while, as it is written : " The isles shall wait for me, and 
the ships of Tarshish, to bring thy sons from far, their 
silver and their gold with them, for the name of the Lord 
thy God, and for the Holy One of Israel, because He hath 
glorified thee." 

Alas, for the vanity of human expectations. How often 
the intoxicating hopes of immediate and glorious success 
are suddenly dashed to pieces. The anticipated fortune 
that seemed to be within easy reach fails to materialize, 
and the fame that was to crown with laurel the young 
poet, painter or sculptor on the morrow does not come, 
is postponed till the day after, or the day after that, and 
may never be his at all. And as in other instances, this 
brief dream of world-wide Messianic conquests was abruptly 
terminated by unceremonious reality. 

Jesus Himself was the first to break the spell and dis- 
illusionize His friends. He had been told of the presence 
and the desire of the Greeks. Of them He takes no direct 
notice ; but, probably detecting the note of exultation in 
the voice of His disciples, He replies to them in a way that 
leaves no ground for any confidence in the present or early 
triumph of the new religion. His depressing and dis- 
couraging answer is recorded in my text. Freely para- 
phrased it is as though He said : 

" Do not for a moment imagine that the end for which 
I came has been attained, that the goal has been reached 
and that the crown has been won. Do not misunderstand 
these paltry processionings and this short-lived show of 
popularity. My kingdom is not victorious. Nor will it 
attain supremacy without many drawbacks, trials and 
vicissitudes. Neither will it steadily advance, like the 
dawning of the morning, but will be subject to manifold 



DECAY AND DEATH 39 

interruptions and retrogressions. It will have to die re- 
peatedly if it is to live permanently, and it will pass 
through various stages of decay if it is finally to flourish 
and bear much fruit. ' Except a grain of wheat fall into 
the earth and die it abideth by itself alone. ' There is no 
expansion, no development possible to it until it is planted. 
' But if it die, it beareth much fruit.' When it is cast into 
darkness and obscurity, and when it decays, disintegrates, 
then its grander life shall spring forth, richer in fruitage, 
fairer in beauty." 

The principle thus enunciated He applies to His own 
position and career. 

" I Myself shall not move upward along an even, un- 
deviating and undeflecting path and so attain the throne. 
The route before Me is circuitous. I must descend as low 
as the tomb if I am to rise as high as heaven. I must be 
lifted up from the earth if I am to draw all men unto Me. 
The cross and the grave are the downward steps by which 
I shall climb upward to the right hand of God. Like 
the grain of wheat, I must die if I am to live and live 
in conquering majesty, and not until then shall even a be- 
ginning be made to the bringing in of the fullness of the 
Gentiles." 

Frequently since these memorable words were spoken 
the friends of Christianity have imagined that their faith 
was on the eve of world-wide dominion and would never 
more be subject to serious backsets. These sanguine 
dreams, however, have thus far only ended in disappoint- 
ment. The victory has never been as great as was sup- 
posed, and sometimes even the hosannas have mockingly 
led to Calvary. Christianity now is not in the truest and 
highest sense the religion of the present. All that can 
be fairly claimed is that she is the religion of the future. 
That hope she has never abated. She ever heralds ap- 



40 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

proaching millenniums, believes in her own destiny, and 
though clouds and darkness beset her way, and though 
evils and perils encompass her on every side — 

" She reels not in the storm of warring words, 
She brightens at the clash of » yes ' or ' no,' 
She sees the best that glimmers through the worst, 
She feels the sun is hid but for the night, 
She spies the summer through the winter bud, 
She tastes the fruit before the blossom falls, 
She hears the lark within the songless shell, 
She finds the fountain where they wailed, * Mirage.' " 

But there are numbers among her own people, and of 
those who are friendly to her, who have to-day no eyes for 
these optimistic visions and no convictions of returning 
vigor and conquering energy. The pendulum has swung 
to the opposite extreme. Instead of the too great assurance 
born of partial successes a feeling of too great depression 
resulting from partial failures has been engendered. It is 
feared that at last the shadow on the dial of Ahaz can 
never be reversed, and that Christianity is slowly dying 
without hope of resurrection. We are reminded that civi- 
lizations and religions have ended in total extinction and 
eclipse, and that animal types and races, worn out and 
crowded to the wall, have deteriorated beyond the point of 
resuscitation and have perished; and why may not the 
same fate overtake our faith in the near future ? 

This is the great question that is now uppermost in the 
minds of thousands. When Mr. John Kelman, notwith- 
standing his brave words in his book — " The Faith of 
Robert Louis Stevenson" — writes of the present trend of 
opinion he is evidently harassed by many serious misgiv- 
ings. Take these excerpts: "Owing to a great variety 
of causes, not a few thoughtful men and women have lost 



DECAY AND DEATH 41 

their hold upon the religious beliefs which supported the 
courage of their fathers." And further: "One cause of 
the present decline from old beliefs is a spiritual debility, a 
lack of the power to take energetic hold on beliefs, even 
when reason has no fault to find with them." Surely de- 
bility is itself a bad sign, and if it increases how can we 
expect the present crisis to stop short of an appalling re- 
ligious catastrophe ? 

But we must not lose heart of courage. It may be that 
the seed is once]again undergoing the marvellous metamor- 
phosis spoken of by Christ, and that the transition state 
will end in more glorious foliage and more abundant fruit. 
The present retrogression may only be preliminary to a 
greater progress. That we may ourselves judge whether 
this is probable or not, and that we may perceive our own 
relation to the possible outcome, let us consider the re- 
markable extent and the workings of our Lord's striking 
teaching that 

Decay and Death Condition Life and Growth 
In the vegetable world it is so well understood that it 
calls for no special vindication. Farmers, horticulturists 
and floriculturists recognize the principle and act upon it. 
They know the price they have to pay for success, and are 
willing to lose much that they may gain more. When the 
seed is in the ground and only the black soil rewards their 
scrutiny, when no sign of life appears for weeks, they do 
not despair and abandon their fields and gardens. Neither 
should Christians be despondent though the winter be 
dreary and the very smell of decay be in the air. They 
should be able to see the coming harvest through the cold 
and desolate season, and do their part by turning up the 
surface soil and exposing it to the sun that growth be not 
impeded. 



42 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

Perhaps they may be more emboldened to trust, work 
and wait if they can only be made to see that the law in- 
volved in the development of the seed is equally applicable 
to a much wider field of life and activity. For it seems to 
be in every department of existence the rule that retrogres- 
sion, relapses, recessions, decline, the retreat of the tide 
and the veering of the wind are closely linked with ad- 
vancement and the return of high water. 

Theodore Parker characterized the fall of Adam as "a 
fall upwards," and while in the sense intended the phrase 
may be objectionable, still through the grace of God, that 
descent has been made the occasion of a grander elevation 
than would otherwise have been obtained. And as already 
set forth of our Lord, He who was rich had to become 
poor that He might have riches for us all ; He had to 
empty Himself that He might be the fullness that filleth 
all in all. The divine seed had to die before it could be 
fruitful. When He was ensnared and then engulfed in 
His black doom, His enemies rejoiced over his degrada- 
tion. But they understood not the mystery. Like the 
fabled god He had to touch the earth that saving strength 
might be acquired. He bowed Himself to the shame of 
the grave that He might rise to the glory of the throne, 
and declined as deep as hades that He might advance to 
the height of heaven. 

What was true of our Lord applies also to His disciples. 
Retrogression is fundamental to spiritual progress. The 
seed of the word must be planted in the heart for it to 
bear fruit in the renewed nature. Christ taught the doc- 
trine of self-abnegation, that we must come down from our 
self-righteousness, self-sufficiency, self-reliance, and be- 
come as nothing : but he who humbles himself shall be 
exalted. The soul casts out self and receives Christ, that 
is, surrenders dross for gold, poverty for affluence, sorrow 



DECAY AND DEATH 43 

for joy. Paul sums up this doctrine in Romans when he 
declares that he has died to sin and so is alive to right- 
eousness and that the life he lives is not his own, but the 
life of the Son of God. We may rest assured that the 
disregard of this fundamental condition of spiritual power 
in religious communities, as well as in individuals, is one 
of the causes of the existing apathy and inefficiency of 
Christian churches. 

We shall, however, do injustice to this principle we are 
studying if we suppose that it is operative only in the field 
and in the Church. As I have already intimated, it may 
be detected in some form or other almost everywhere. 
The fact is that nowhere in the universe do we find steady, 
direct propulsion, with neither pauses nor pulsations. 
Light and sound do not travel in undeviating and unbend- 
ing lines. They move in waves, each undulation being 
essential to their transmission. Also, as Rev. Hugh Mac- 
millan 1 suggests, the lion crouches before he makes the 
deadly spring that his strength may be concentrated for 
the leap. Man instinctively draws back the arm when he 
would inflict a telling blow. Thus he gathers the force 
necessary for its delivery. The billows of the sea sink 
that they may rise and the descending motion is necessary 
to the ascending. The flow of the tide, also, is depend- 
ent on the refluent action of the waves, just as the decline 
of day is related to its beneficence. To Adam the first 
sunset must have been alarming, as the end of all things, 
even as now we shrink from encroaching darkness. Nev- 
ertheless, the night is as much required by the constitution 
of things as the day itself. The uninterrupted reign of 
the sun would work such chemical changes as would 

1 Mr. Macmillan's books on nature and religion are well worth 
reading, and I gladly acknowledge my indebtedness to him for sug- 
gestions in this section of the sermon. 



44 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

prove disastrous to the earth. The withdrawal of light 
and heat for awhile affords repose and refreshing to 
the struggling particles of matter by reducing the temper- 
ature. 

In a similar way winter is the refuge not the destroyer of 
summer. The earth would be overrun with vegetation but 
for its annual return, the soil would be exhausted and the 
curse of sterility would consume. Under such circum- 
stances summer would cease to exist and we would have 
one vast Sahara. Likewise in religion too much uninter- 
rupted prosperity and continuous favor with the world, 
constituted as we are, with our limitations, would tend to 
abate spirituality and the sense of dependence on God. 
When wealth flows into the Church, when society flatters 
and favors, and the days of struggle have ended, then she 
also may become incinerated, scorched, barren, and she 
would at such times inevitably perish, were it not for the 
night and the winter. When her revenues decline, her 
workers diminish and her existence seems to be precarious, 
then she is moved to consider, and to prepare for a better 
day. In obscurity, in meditation, she gathers up her 
strength for the renewal of her aggressive mission. 

On a yet larger scale nature throws light on the problem 
of decay and growth. Evolution does not withhold an 
illuminating testimony. Among its most palpable disclos- 
ures is the important doctrine that the path of life has not 
uniformly been an ascending one. It has been checked, it 
has deteriorated, it has reverted to a lower plane. The 
wheels of nature have sometimes slipped backwards, and 
mighty hills have necessitated lowly valleys. Galton has 
written to prove that there is an interplay between degen- 
eracy and improvement, and that overswift development is 
offset by recurring descent below the average of humanity. 
The children of tall parents are not always tall, and the 



DECAY AND DEATH 45 

children of short parents are not always under height. 
Sometimes the reverse is true. But the evident struggle in 
the physical order is to preserve the man. 

In the sphere of mental and moral qualities the same 
conflict is observable. The offspring of men of genius are 
not always, and indeed rarely, the equals of their sires, 
and mediocre parentage has been blessed and honored 
with a brilliant progeny. If the line of ascent was to con- 
tinue on the high level uninterruptedly probably it would 
reach a climax in the production of a few men and women 
who would veritably be dominant and irresistible. This 
unrivalled oligarchy of intellect would subordinate all 
mankind to its sway, just as a few successive generations 
increasing without drawbacks in business sagacity and ac- 
quisitiveness, of the Rockefeller and Morgan order, would 
ultimately control the capital of the world. So, also, there 
may be a similar reason for special seasons of religious de- 
pression, that the golden mean of sanity, reverence and 
practical efficiency may be preserved. 

Christianity has suffered much from alternations and ex- 
tremes. But it is questionable whether the extreme of 
dullness and apathy is not needed at times to counteract 
the extreme of fanaticism and excitement. A generation 
gives itself to religious discussion and agitation, to con- 
vulsive and confusing revival meetings. Or the period is 
prolific in sensational leaders, faith healers, alleged " Eli- 
jahs," and other eccentric frenetics, and the heads of 
the people are filled with wild ideas, crazy dreams, and 
were not a halt called they would become raving maniacs. 
As a consequence, when things have ceased to be tolerable 
a reaction sets in, and churches settle back far below where 
they normally ought to be, into frigidity, formality and 
apathy. The religious life has apparently deteriorated. 
But may not the retrogression result in restoring the equi- 



46 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

librium, and thus reinvigorate the life and minister to its 
more wholesome and permanent development ? 

There is another feature in these analogies entitled to 
some weight. Evolution reveals a persistent conservatism 
and a restorative tendency in its operations. Whatever 
changes may take place life itself endures. Particular or- 
ganisms may fail of vital adaptation to environment. 
Eyes may disappear, as in the case of the fish in the silent 
river that flows through Mammoth Cave ; a claw may van- 
ish as in the history of certain crustaceans ; or the mem- 
bers of the body may drop away, as in those sea creatures 
who settle down on the back of a crab and are converted 
into a mere absorbent sac. Notwithstanding these exci- 
sions and deteriorations, however, life survives and its won- 
derful march continues. Species may follow species in the 
endless panorama of existence, but the course of evolution 
is not frustrated, and it often so uses the retrogression as 
to introduce a new variety and higher type of life. 

Christianity is also endued with a persistent conserva- 
tism. She has been impaired by evil environment, she has 
at times become dim of vision ; she has occasionally sacri- 
ficed her independent activities and has degenerated into 
an ecclesiastical absorbent sac on the back of some non- 
progressive worldly government, and she has developed a 
great variety of species of herself — but she herself survives. 
She will not die and apparently cannot be killed. In the 
degradation of her Churchism she evolved the larger and 
nobler Congregationalism and Puritanism of the seventeenth 
century ; and when even Puritanism had declined and had 
become an arid waste of dogmatism and stilted asceticism 
she unfolded herself in the new Methodism of Wesley and 
in the spiritual movements of the Haldanes. She has al- 
ways proved herself equal to the changed conditions. 
For a season she may have seemed to be overmatched; 



DECAY AND DEATH 47 

but after a while she has reasserted herself and put forth 
fresh energy and presented another variety of her exhaust- 
less life. Like the seed, in one form she has wasted away 
only to recover herself in another ; and reflecting on the 
unfailing working of this law I do not see why we should 
be despondent in this hour of crisis, or imagine that Chris- 
tianity is perishing when she may only be passing through 
a new transition. 

This conviction will, I think, be deepened by the confir- 
mation which our Lord's doctrine of the seed receives 
from history. Thus, the Hebrews had to descend into 
captivity before they could attain the rank of freemen. 
They had to be planted in the soil of Egypt and there learn 
in bondage the glory of freedom, before they could take 
their stand with the nations. There they acquired the 
habits of obedience, acquired the arts and sciences and 
were trained for the inevitable hardships they had to en- 
dure. Their servitude in Babylon was also not in vain, 
for after the exile these Israelites exhibit a purer monothe- 
ism and a deeper spirituality. Later on, Paul argues that 
their final dispersion means "the riches of the world." 
Hitherto, their privileges had been local and racial, but 
with the death of their nationality, their Scriptures, their 
spiritual ideals, their very hopes became the common 
possession of mankind. 

Similarly Greece passes away. We are yet thrilled by 
her story and follow breathlessly her varied fortunes. But 
the splendor of Athens, the glory of her schools, her navies 
and her armies — these have been long ago swallowed up in 
the darkening tomb of time : 

" Far-called, the navies melt away; 

On dune and headland sinks the fire ; 
Lo, all the pomp of yesterday 
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre." 



48 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

Nevertheless, the Hellenistic spirit lives on. When 
Thucydides wrote his immortal history it was bounded, 
parochial, restricted to the heroic people of his day, but 
since then it has been emancipated. It permeates our 
literature, it pervades our culture, and preserves before the 
eyes of each generation the loftiest examples of patriotism. 
The seed died that it might live again in the larger life of 
the ages. 

Thus, also, in the colonies of North America, the seed 
of liberty as contained in Magna Charta, through the 
singular fatuities of the British government was trampled 
into the mire and seemed to perish, but it did not. The 
outer envelop of the seed rotted and fell away, the inner 
life survived, and when it triumphed over death an ad- 
vance was attained ; for kings and thrones, state, churches 
and other appendages of royalty and encumbrances of 
freedom had ceased to be longer tolerable. There was 
again a time nearer to our own when this precious treasure 
appeared to be in jeopardy. Secession had plunged the 
United States in civil war and evil prophets abroad and 
pessimists at home had predicted the collapse of free insti- 
tutions. Liberty was doubtless being sifted and tried in 
the fires. But she did not succumb. She emerged from 
the flame, purer, grander, to exert a wider influence on 
mankind than ever in the past. 

When we remember the bitter vicissitudes through 
which this same liberty has passed, and recall the seasons, 
long and dark, in which she has been buried out of sight 
by despotic men, we can hardly doubt the immortality of 
her life. She has been crushed repeatedly. She has been 
gagged, bound, and stoned in the streets. Tyrants, per- 
secutors and inquisitors have drunk themselves merry as 
they have jeered at her corpse, and the poor have wrung 
their hands in despairing sorrow as she responded not to 



DECAY AND DEATH 49 

their piteous cries. The world thrust the dead aside and 
went on building up monarchies, fostering oligarchies and 
playing with imperialisms. And yet, notwithstanding the 
haughty contempt of her enemies, and the faintheartedness 
of her friends, liberty has revived, resumed again her mis- 
sion, and in a way broader, grander, and truer, has gone 
forth to emancipate and ennoble mankind. 

What, liberty immortal and Christianity perishable? 
Why, when the latter is called on to endure what the 
former has encountered and survived, should we straight- 
way conclude that her mission is drawing to a close ? We 
have here an instructive parallel. Has Christianity 
entered on a time when her supporters are falling away ? 
So have they often fallen away from liberty. Is she no 
longer a commanding force? There have been seasons 
when liberty has failed to enthrone and sway the masses. 
Has she impaired her influence by too close intimacy with 
the world ? Alas ! liberty also has frequently corrupted 
her way, and may be doing so now, by her alliance with 
extravagance, luxury and sordidness. Has Christianity 
reached a point when she doubts herself and when she is 
perplexed and confused at her own misgivings ? Well, 
her experiences have been duplicated more than once by 
liberty, and yet liberty survives and no reasonable man de- 
nies that to her belongs the future. Shall we have more 
confidence in the indestructibility of liberty than of Chris- 
tianity ? I, for one, cannot. Is she who has given to so 
many the purer and nobler life to perish? For her to 
cease, to pass away, would be as anomalous and absurd as 
it would have been for Christ to raise Lazarus from the 
dead while He Himself had to remain helpless in the 
tomb. No, like liberty, she may be overshadowed, and for 
the moment almost buried out of sight, but like liberty, she 
is endued with endless life. 



50 THE MODERN CKISIS IN KELIGION 

Therefore, we ought to dismiss all serious apprehension 
and alarm, and determine in what way we can best further 
the divine purpose that death may indeed contribute to 
the larger life, and decay to the fuller growth. 

Primarily, our duty is one of direction. When I say 
this I am not unmindful of the fact that Paul may plant 
and Apollos water, and that God must give the increase. 
I am not ignoring the divine power. That is reverently 
acknowledged and trusted. His intelligence, however, is 
operative through ours, and by us He molds, shapes and 
orders the religion that is proclaimed in His name. The 
question has been raised by evolutionists whether nature 
shows direction towards a definite end, or "has the created 
world rightly been compared to a ship which has been aban- 
doned as a derelict upon the high seas, in itself evidently 
fitted up and ordered for some good voyage, yet left without 
helmsman to drift as an aimless world over the deeps of in- 
finite space ? " 1 This last supposition is being abandoned 
by scientists and it is coming to be more generally believed 
that the phrase " natural selection " is misleading — for how 
can there be selection, choice, separating, arrangement, 
without intelligence? This being perceived, there is a 
growing conviction that nature has been and is being 
guided by a Supreme Mind to a specific end. It is to be 
noted also that in moving towards this end the Almighty 
has engaged the thoughtful cooperation of the creature, as 
seen in the cultivation of plants, the improvement of soils, 
the domestication of animals, the development of flowers 
and in the wonderful transformations that have taken place 
in the physical order. Nor is it credible to suppose that 
God would have imparted a definite character to nature, 
and would have intimated its goal, would have associated 
human beings with Himself in its destiny, and not have 
lu Through Science to Faith," p. 80. Smyth. 



DECAY AND DEATH 51 

pursued the same course in regard to the fashioning and 
forwarding of Christianity. 

There is an instructive passage in the letter to the Co- 
rinthians (i Epistle 15 •* 37, 38) that bears upon this 
point. Writing of the resurrection St. Paul says : "that 
which thou sowest, thou sowest not the body that shall be, 
but a bare grain, it may chance of wheat or of some other 
kind ; but God giveth it a body as it hath pleased Him, 
and to each seed a body of its own." Yes; "a body of 
its own," not foreign to it, contradictory of it, but as iden- 
tical with it essentially and as harmonious as the shock of 
ripened corn to the germs from whence it sprang. Thus, 
likewise, we nothing doubt that he purposes in the requick- 
ening of Christianity that her latest and highest form shall 
never depart from the fundamental type imparted to her 
originally. 

"A body of her own" — this is our rule of conduct. 
Under God we are to direct the revived life and new 
growth, not by diverging from the genius and nature of 
Christianity, but by conforming to them and unfolding 
them to their utmost limit of spiritual fullness and beauty. 
In other words, we are to be careful, not in the name of 
progress to array her in the cast-off garments of defunct 
Paganism, or to invest her with the emblems of departed 
Stoicism, or even to dress her up in the new-fangled no- 
tions of a modern religion, not sure of God, uncertain of 
future blessedness, and destitute of mediation and atone- 
ment. 

Charles Sumner in one of his speeches describes the 
action of the swollen river Arve in driving back the on- 
flowing Rhone into the Lake of Geneva. The one river 
arrests the progress of the other, but after the unnatural 
reaction, the Rhone resumes its way with greater volume 
and force, with waters clearer for having been submerged 



52 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

in the lake and having there been sunned and purified. 
But however increased in volume, however nobler in ex- 
panse and however swifter and more impetuous in move- 
ment, the waters were still water, no radical change having 
taken place in their composition. Thus, likewise, with 
Christianity. For a time she may have been arrested in 
her course, and the deluging torrents of worldliness and 
recklessness may have temporarily driven her back. Ah ! 
if we would do our duty, let us direct her refluent flow to 
the source from whence she came, and there in her earliest, 
simplest and purest state she may wash herself clean of her 
defilements and return to her work purer and mightier — 
the same in character as when she first streamed forth to 
bless. 

Secondly, our duty is one of cultivation. St. Paul re- 
minds us that we are God's husbandry ; at once we are 
His garden and His helpers. So the same writer recog- 
nizes the obligation we are under to plant and to water the 
seed. That God gives the increase is not questioned. It 
is affirmed. But that does not supersede the necessity for 
our doing what we are appointed to do. We are to do 
our best so to condition religion that it will have a favora- 
ble opportunity to progress. What is planting if it is not 
wisely conditioning the seed ? The best soil is chosen, the 
space most open to the sun and most exposed to refreshing 
showers. If we would have a harvest we must be dissat- 
isfied with the grain as it is and take pains so as to condi- 
tion it that it may yield its abundance. We must answer 
the question for ourselves : — Are we content with Chris- 
tianity ? Is she what she ought to be, what she might be ? 
For myself, I answer, "No." 

I look at her as I would at a seed, and I discover an 
outer envelop of tradition, false or inadequate theologies, 
antiquated schemes of work, conventional and depressing 



DECAY AND DEATH 53 

modes of worship combined with narrowing prejudices and 
bigoted trivial asceticisms ; and not until she is afforded 
adequate opportunity to free herself from this chaff will she 
grow in grace, beauty and fruitfulness. Are we ready to 
furnish this opportunity ? If so, we will encourage free in- 
quiry, an independent spirit and revolutionary reforms. 
We will not cling to customs and creeds as though they 
were of divine authority, and resent and reject the widen- 
ing and expanding influence of scientific and critical 
knowledge on faith. Moreover, we will more than ever 
take it out of its ecclesiastical associations and transplant 
it to the homes and common life of the people. The ec- 
clesiastical hot-house is not the best place for its develop- 
ment. There it attains only a stunted, fruitless and odor- 
less growth. Carry it to the lowly abodes of the masses, 
to the broad, open plains of the world's ordinary life, and 
it will have to put away from it the superficial, decaying 
chaff or perish. The struggling common people have no 
heart or time for the discussions and hair-splitting distinc- 
tions of the clergy, — and planted in their midst, left to 
them, and tested by their necessities, Christianity would 
soon lose some of these encumbrances which disfigure her 
progress. 

Then, finally, our duty is one of exemplification. We 
should illustrate in ourselves what we aim to see wrought 
out on a larger scale by the entire Church. I have already 
stated that the principle in the text is applicable to our- 
selves as individuals. This is confirmed by what follows 
it, when Jesus adds: "He that loveth his life loseth it ; 
and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it to life 
eternal." Rev. Dr. Marcus Dods has a very suggestive 
comment on this passage : " One of two things you can do 
with your life. . . . You may consume your life for 
your own present gratification and profit, to satisfy your 



54 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

present cravings and tastes and to secure the largest amount 
of immediate enjoyment to yourself — you may eat your life ; 
or you may be content to put aside present enjoyment and 
profits of a selfish kind and devote your life to the uses of 
God and man." 1 You can either feed on the seed you 
hold or plant it. If you do the former you have your little 
pleasure and then it is forever gone, but if you plant it, 
you have surrendered it to obscurity and to the possibilities 
of the future. This is the hard thing to do — to walk by 
faith not by sight. To believe that by surrendering to-day, 
by giving up our large and commanding pulpit for an ob- 
scurer one, by turning our back now on home and friends 
for distant fields of labor, or by sacrificing the present en- 
joyment of wealth, ease and comfort, we shall make our 
to-morrow fuller, richer and more abundant, is not an easy 
achievement. Most of us stagger and falter there. 

And yet what we are anxious to see in Christianity as a 
whole will never be unless it is first actualized in its indi- 
vidual members. When Christians are ready to deny 
themselves really and not fictitiously, when they are glad to 
serve that higher interests may prosper, then we may cease 
from troubling over the future of our faith. The beliefs, 
the spirit and the actions of the units will determine the 
course and destiny of the aggregates. Let them feel in 
measurable degree that not until they are planted in lowli- 
ness and die to their pride, self-seeking and self-gratifica- 
tion can they bear much fruit, then Christianity will be 
sympathetic with them and will convert her retrogression 
into a condition of advancement. 

May I not add that this acting on the principle which 
our Lord recognized as governing His own increase of 
power brings with it a peculiar reward of its own. It pre- 
pares us for the last great change, called death. By it we 
»" Gospel of John," Vol. II, p. 35. 



DECAY AND DEATH 55 

are educated in the art of dying, and the grave is despoiled 
of its gloom. St. Paul declared that he "died daily," 
and when we likewise mortify the deeds of the body, or " do 
to death," as it has been rendered, our lower self that the 
higher self may live, we become reconciled to the inevi- 
table dissolution that awaits us. We understand it, and if 
we do not welcome it, we shrink not from it. 

The law of progress here teaches us that we die in time 
that we may live in eternity, that were we never planted in 
the grave we would never bear fruit in immortality. Taught 
by our experiences we find it impossible to think of death 
as an ending. It is not the extinction of being, but the 
flickering of the flame preceding an inextinguishable en- 
kindling; it is not an eternal winter, around whose icy 
brow gleam auroral mocking smiles, but a momentary chill 
that leads to beauteous summer ; and it is not an eternal 
sleep, sheeted in earth and mantled with sod, but a gentle 
closing of the weary eyelids and a folding of the tired 
hands before the dawning of the day that brings neither 
weariness nor care. Such, then, is death ; this and noth- 
ing more. And if it is only this, let us not be dismayed 
at its approach, but welcome it as the cold, though alto- 
gether kindly friend who strips us of the tinsel finery of 
earth and clothes us with the spotless regal robes of heaven. 

In Scotland there is a famous picture, described to me 
recently by a friend, that represents a dying maiden, over- 
shadowed by a skeleton, the symbol of death. Back of 
the repulsive figure is seen the shadowy form of a radiant 
angel, and behind the fleshless hand of the destroyer, as 
though it were its own, another hand, fair with angelic 
beauty, laid upon the heart of the poor young sufferer. 
The artist's meaning is transparent. Judged by the eye of 
sense, death is horrible, but the eye of faith discerns only 
a glorious being come to bear the emancipated spirit home 



56 THE MODEKN CRISIS IN KELIGION 

to bliss. The skeleton disappears in the seraph, and the 
iciness of its touch thrills the dying with the fires of im- 
mortality ! Shall we not then kiss the chilly fingers and 
smile at the hideous, ghastly mask our good angel is pleased 
to wear ? 

Taking into consideration the very general operation of 
the law of decay and growth, and the reasonableness of 
the obligations resting on God's people, we feel warranted 
in believing that, notwithstanding all unfavorable signs, 
Christianity has only been checked, impeded, for a season, 
and will recover herself and sweep on with greater majesty 
to victory. 

There was a brief time when the floods of Niagara ceased 
to roll over the brink into the abyss below. From the 
shore to Goat's Island there was scarcely any water, and 
it was said that a man could have walked almost dryshod 
from one point to the other. But what a fool he would 
have been had he concluded that he might pitch his tent 
there in the forsaken channel, on the assumption that the 
floods would nevermore sweep onward from Lake Erie. 
Had he perpetrated such a piece of consummate madness he 
would not have long escaped its terrible consequences, for 
the waters had not been evaporated or swallowed up. 
They had merely been obstructed by an ice jam and were 
fretting against their frozen barriers. After a time they 
swept over the hindrance to their freedom, or bursting 
through it surged forward to the edge of the precipice, and 
had any poor creature been in their path he would have 
been swirled over into the weltering maelstrom below. 

Christianity, likewise, seems to be temporarily the victim 
of chill and frost. Her way has been blocked. She has 
been driven back, or she has been prevented by various 
hindrances from moving forward. Let not her friends, 
however, despair, or her foes rejoice. If there is any truth 



DECAY AND DEATH 57 

in these great spiritual laws we have studied, if we have to 
decline that we may ascend, die that we may live, if God 
is back of His cause, then Christianity shall surely regain 
more than her usual momentum, shall drive all foes before 
her, and fill the earth with her glory, as the mighty falls 
of Niagara fill Ontario with their clear and glorious floods. 



Ill 

THE RELIGIOUS PROBLEM OF THE CITY 

" And when even was come He [Jesus] went out of the city." — 
Mark ii : ig. 

WE sometimes lightly hold and frivolously 
abandon what we have received with every 
expression of delight. The flowers we pluck 
with feverish hands are often cast aside before they wither, 
and the fairest loves are sometimes forsaken before they 
have yielded half their sweetness, for new and strange 
affections. Men, alas, are too uncertain in their friend- 
ships and too mercurial in their tempers for us always to 
rely on their vows or to be sure that their gratification of 
to-day will survive on the morrow. 

Our Lord on His triumphal entry into Jerusalem mis- 
trusted both. He perceived, however sincere the people 
may have been, that their violent transports would soon 
exhaust themselves and that they would in a moment 
weary of what their sires had for centuries been longing to 
possess. Quick was He to detect in their hallelujahs the 
inevitable strident anathemas, and hence notwithstanding 
His welcome He could not feel at home in the metropolis 
of Judea. St. Luke notices that during the week begin- 
ning with Palm Sunday Jesus does not stay in Jerusalem at 
night. With the return of evening He goes forth to 
Bethany or the Mount of Olives, until the crisis is reached 
and then He goes forth for the last time bearing His cross. 
Never more shall He teach in the streets of the city, never 

58 



RELIGIOUS PROBLEM OF THE CITY 59 

more shall He heal in its public places, and never more 
weep over the doom of its people, except from the heights 
of heaven. 

The world has never yet been blessed with a real and 
actual Christian city, with one where our Lord has dwelt 
and reigned. It is not denied that many communities 
have been thus regarded, and that not a few have inscribed 
a religious sentiment on their coat of arms. Nor is it for- 
gotten that one municipality has been crowded with 
churches and governed largely by ecclesiastics. But I 
maintain that at the best they have been only partially 
Christianized and never have been thoroughly permeated 
and controlled by the spirit of Christ. Surely the so- 
called converted Rome of the fourth century, on to its 
overthrow in the fifth, as described by Ammianus 
Marcellinus and St. Jerome, — with its rich patricians 
arrayed in tunics and mantles of fluttering silk, riding in 
gold-plated chariots, eating and drinking to satiety, and 
their wives, disciples of the Nazarene, decorated and 
painted, wearing robes of silken stuff gorgeously em- 
broidered with representations of the poverty of Jesus — 
could hardly be truly termed a Christian city. Still less 
does it seem entitled to that honor when our eyes rest on 
the priest with his jewelled fingers and lordly ways sneer- 
ing at a poor German monk, who, standing on the banks 
of the yellow Tiber, is moved to indignation at the gross 
superstitions and grosser immoralities of the times. It was 
not a Christian city then, notwithstanding its popes, 
bishops, cardinals and reverend clergy, any more than 
Constantinople was in the days of Chrysostom, or Carthage 
in the days of Augustine, and it has never been a Christian 
city since. 

Verona, Nuremburg, Florence in the middle-ages, 
glorious in art and gorgeous in cathedral worship, with 



60 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

their narrow, fetid, gloomy streets, and with their un- 
sanitary and crowded houses, were never really entitled to 
be regarded as other than semi-barbarous and semi- 
heathenish communities. Spiritually and morally we fear 
that not much more can be claimed for Paris, Berlin, 
London, Chicago, New York and other modern com- 
mercial and industrial centres. Admitting their gracious 
charities, their numberless churches, their numerous and 
splendid educational foundations, their many noble and 
elevating measures of reform, and their cultured, worthy, 
upright citizens, not a few, nevertheless they are far from 
approximating to the Christian ideal. It is not necessary 
to insinuate or charge that Jesus has no welcome in such 
cities, or that He has abandoned them altogether. He 
may be there, as I believe He is, and yet not having been 
accepted by the large majority of the population and His 
principles not being acted on in civic government, it must be 
conceded, however reluctantly, that they have no right to 
be called by His name. 

The low moral tone, the sordid and mercenary features 
of our material civilizations and the frequency of municipal 
scandals, taken in connection with the neglected churches, 
the desecrated Sabbaths, and the apparent decline of vital 
faith, force on the attention of all thoughtful people, what 
I desire to consider : 

The Religious Problem of the City 
What is this problem? We ought to ascertain its 
character. 

A clergyman has recently asserted, "the Church wanes 
but Christianity increases," — a belated paradox, truly. 
Accepted as it reads, it would justify the corollary : — 
Efface the Church altogether and Christianity would 
triumph all along the line. But would it ? Are we pre- 



EELIGIOUS PROBLEM OF THE CITY 61 

pared to subscribe to a corresponding statement — less root, 
more flower ; no root, all flower ; less government, better 
citizenship ; no government — anarchy — good and perfect 
citizenship ? Yet these formulas are just as reasonable as 
to maintain that the abrogation of pulpits, altars, public 
services and all that enter into church life and order would 
and does contribute to the growth of the Christian faith. 
Fewer springs, more and fuller rivers, — is a statement that 
fails to commend itself to common sense, and as the 
church wanes Christianity increases is equally unconvinc- 
ing. No ; such a contradiction is not tenable. The two 
seem rather to stand or fall together. Hence, John 
Morley has not hesitated to say : "Christianity has been 
tried and failed; to-day that failure is too patent." The 
author of "Natural Religion" has added: "When a 
religion, such as Christianity loses its hold after having 
possessed the minds of men for centuries, as a matter of 
course a sort of phantom of it will haunt the earth for a 
time." So, then, all we have is merely a ghost ! Rev. 
Dr. Watson has deepened this suspicion by what he has 
been writing of late about " The New Revival " : 

"The attendance on public worship is steadily decreas- 
ing, the grasp of spiritual realities is consciously relaxing, 
the enthusiasm for Christ's Cross is fading, and the light 
of hope and triumph is dying from the brow of faith. We 
are between the tides, between the creed which is dead and 
the creed which is to be, between the life that was and the 
life that is going to be ; we are in the gray mist between 
night and morning." 

From these representations, whether accepted in their 
entirety or not, we are warranted in inferring that the 
trouble lies not with the Church alone, but with Christian- 
ity as well, and that the latter does not gain in influence 
when the former declines in strength and in support. This 



62 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

interdependence brings into relief two features of the re- 
ligious problem : 

I. Church Attendance. II. Christian Efficiency. 

It will probably be admitted without argument that if 
we are to do the people good we must bring them together, 
and that if they decline to come we are just so far pre- 
vented from carrying out our benevolent intentions. I am 
not saying that church attendance is everything, nor the 
supreme thing ; only that it furnishes a guage of the city's 
spiritual life. Now, it is generally conceded that there has 
been a serious falling off in congregations during the last 
few years, and that there is a widespread indifference to 
the claims of divine worship. A few figures on the subject 
may serve a useful purpose. 

In greater New York out of a population of three and 
one-half millions it is estimated that over two millions of 
people have no interest in any form of religion, — Catholic, 
Protestant, Hebrew, or any other. It is also asserted that 
within the same city limits there are upwards of 636,000 
out-of-church Protestants, and statistics have shown that 
all over the area not more than twenty-one per cent, enter 
the house of God on Sunday. Other American cities may 
make a better showing, but in nearly all the falling away is 
distinctly manifest. Nor is it more encouraging on the 
other side of the Atlantic. Liverpool, with a population 
of 700,000, and with accommodations for 200,000 wor- 
shippers, on a clear Sunday had only 100,000 people in its 
sanctuaries. Dr. Aked, referring to these significant sta- 
tistics said in a sermon : " There is not a Protestant de- 
nomination which has not gone back in the course of eleven 
years' work," and last summer the Roman Catholics of 
Liverpool were greatly exercised on discovering that the at- 
tendance on their ministrations had declined thirty per cent, 



EELIGIOUS PROBLEM OF THE CITY 63 

The most interesting and the most scientific inquiry into 
this subject was undertaken by the Daily News in con- 
nection with the religious life of London, and with reliable, 
though pathetic and depressing, results. According to the 
Daily News' estimate only 850,205 persons out of a 
population of 4,468,049, and a possible attendance of 
2,234,000 are to be set down as church goers in the great 
metropolis. About sixteen per cent., a meagre proportion, 
is about all that can be said to take any interest in the 
Christianity of London, and it is clear that neither the 
Establishment nor Nonconformity is maintaining its ground. 
During sixteen years the number of Anglican worshippers 
has diminished from 535,715 to 396,627, a loss of nearly 
140,000, but comparatively the Dissenters have gained, so 
that now the strength of the two communions, judged by 
the census of church attendance, is about equal. The fol- 
lowing statement from the pen of Mr. R. Mudi-Smith, the 
Superintendent of the Census, is worthy of consideration : 

" Our investigations as to the proportion who attend, a 
place of worship twice on a Sunday extended over a con- 
siderable period, and included a large number of places 
of worship. As a result of those investigations, we dis- 
covered that thirty- five per cent., or roughly one-third, of 
those attending church are ' Twicers.' Curiously enough, 
this is the exact proportion I estimated and gave in The 
Daily News several months ago. This fact affects the to- 
tals very materially. The grand total is at once reduced 
from 1,002,940 to 850,205 ; and the aggregate attendance 
for the whole of London, instead of being one in 4.45, or 
twenty per cent, of the population, becomes one in 5.25, 
or sixteen per cent, of the population. I estimate that 
fifty per cent, of the population can if they wish attend a 
place of worship on Sunday ; supposing this to be the 
case, 2,268,270 persons might have been present at social 



64 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

worship, whereas, as I have already shown, only 850,205 
were present, 1,418,065 having willfully absented them- 
selves from worship. In other words, sixty per cent, of 
the available population is apparently either apathetic or 
antagonistic as regards attendance at a place of worship 
on a Sunday." 

There has been an impression abroad that this sixty per 
cent, is composed almost exclusively of the Bohemian and 
impoverished classes of the metropolis. The investiga- 
tions, however, have dispelled this illusion. In proportion 
to their numbers it has been found that as many wealthy, 
titled and cultured people neglect the Lord's house as there 
are poor, ignorant and vicious who do so. A writer in the 
Manchester Guardian thus relieves his mind on this 
point : 

" The leaders of fashion, as far as I can observe, do not 
go to church at all. Either they ' think it all so silly,' as 
the wife of a statesman said to the Archbishop of Canter- 
bury about the service in chapel which precedes dinner at 
Lambeth Palace, or they are too much fatigued by the so- 
cial labors of the preceding week, or they want to look 
through their housekeeping-books or their betting-books, or 
they can't spare the time from bridge. It is currently said 
that some very great ladies, wishing to combine their own 
freedom with a proper example to the lower orders, always 
carry Prayer-books when they walk in the park before 
luncheon on Sunday. It looks well and it imposes no 
burden." 

I think it important that this disregard of religious obli- 
gations on the part of the well-to-do and the aristocratic 
should be recognized. Its parallel exists on the Continent 
of Europe and in America. We talk much about the 
lower classes, the workmen, the artisans, and the denizens 
of the slums, and mourn that they are so indifferent to the 



RELIGIOUS PROBLEM OF THE CITY 65 

claims of the sanctuary, and we compare views as to how 
we can reach these erring people. Somehow we take for 
granted that the millionaires and the gentry, small and 
great, are thronging the courts of the Lord, and that we 
have no cause of anxiety as far as they are concerned. 
And yet they are as unmindful of their duty as others. 
Nay, more, the neglect of the church by the indigent and 
ignorant is largely explained by the irreligiousness of those 
whose position in life is comfortable and prosperous, and 
who have no good reason for the slight they put on the 
holy offices of our common faith. 

There is another side to this problem. Church going 
is not everything. There have been cities where nearly the 
entire population gathered each week for praise and prayer, 
and yet apparently were not much better for their devotion. 
When such observances are substituted for religion itself it 
is not difficult to account for their failure to improve the 
character. In such cases the worshipper makes the means 
the end, and hence never attains the end itself. The real 
problem is, having prevailed on the people to attend 
church, how to quicken the conscience and fill the soul 
with love to God and man. It is possible to gather ten to 
sixteen thousand people to a service, as Dr. Dowie did in 
New York, but when they are collected, what then ? As 
reported at a meeting of the "Federation of Churches" 
in New York, a clergyman said that it is now impossible 
to reach people by the preaching of the Word, — for we do 
not live up to it — and we must, therefore, do so by Indus- 
trial Palaces and similar agencies. 

But the question rises : Do we reach them then ? I am 
not questioning the value of such institutions, but, if we 
are able to bring crowds together for temporal benefits in 
the name of religion, have we in any just sense reached 
them ? What do we mean by reaching the masses ? The 



60 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

phrase is often used but rarely analyzed. If it has any 
worthy significance it must denote the elevation of the 
spiritual nature, the quickening of morality, the deepening 
of devotion ; or, to use Scripture language, the regenera- 
tion of the soul and the consecration of the life to the no- 
blest ideals. Hence, while the religious problem compre- 
hends church attendance it does not stop there ; for it in- 
cludes the far more serious question of effective dealing 
with the people when they do attend. When a congrega- 
tion is built up what difference does it make, what differ- 
ence to the throngs, what difference to society at large ? 

With quite a number of thinkers " reaching the masses " 
by the church, resolves itself primarily into the obligation to 
relieve their temporal necessities and provide them with 
more favorable surroundings. Her social mission is up- 
permost in many minds when they are condemning her 
failures. It is unquestionably true that she will exert very 
little influence, morally and spiritually, over the neglected 
millions of the world if she fails deliberately in helpful 
sympathy. Nor can she be fairly charged with such neg- 
lect, at least in recent times. Mr. Charles Booth in his 
magnificent volumes, on " Life and Labor in London," 
has furnished facts and figures regarding her bounty and 
benevolence in the metropolis which exonerates her from 
the aspersions of critics. She is doing a vast amount of 
work and giving a vast amount of money to succor the 
wretched and the fallen, and in New York, Philadelphia, 
Paris and elsewhere is doing quite as much as in London. 
It is confessed, however, all around that the moral and re- 
ligious results of her sacrifices are very far from being en- 
couraging. 

It must be remembered that the forces making for social 
degradation are practically beyond her ability to control. 
When she points out specifically a source of pollution and 



RELIGIOUS PROBLEM OF THE CITY 67 

debasement, she is usually told to mind her own business 
and preach the gospel. She has no authority to coerce the 
pauper-making and vice-breeding agencies which flourish 
under the protection of law. Let us treat her fairly. The 
church has not sufficient money at her disposal to counter- 
act the deteriorating effects of unscientific economic prin- 
ciples, which keep thousands in a state of poverty and 
semi-starvation ; neither is she rich enough to furnish the 
indigent and debased with the leisure and wholesome rec- 
reations which they need. 

In both these respects she should do what she could, and 
undoubtedly she could do more than she is doing. But if 
she is to be really helpful in social reform she must be care- 
ful not to obscure the ground of her action. If she permits 
the impression to obtain that she is bound to make up in 
charity what the industrial system is bound to pay in jus- 
tice, the injustice will grow beyond the ability of charity to 
mitigate by its gifts — and the blame for the resulting 
degradation and misery will be laid at the door of the 
church. Already a vague impression of this kind seems to 
be abroad. Never has the church before given as much 
money to correct social ills, and yet never have so many of 
her beneficiaries refused to attend her services, and never 
before has there been so wide-spread a disposition to hold 
her responsible for evils she has not created, and which she 
has been striving to ameliorate. Up to the present two 
things must be admitted : 

I. The recent humanitarianism of the church has not 
increased her membership, nor increased attendance on 
her public ministrations. 

II. Neither has it brought any perceptible change in 
the social conditions which are ruinous to the moral well- 
being and happiness of thousands. 

The problem of religion is, how all this can be remedied, 



68 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

how the inhabitants of our cities without regard to race or 
rank can generally be induced to attend on its ministra- 
tions and how its legitimate power over individual and 
social life can be revived. 

Nor will it be possible to deal successfully with this 
problem until we recognize and study three forces by which 
it is complicated. 

The first of these forces is the saloon. Cardinal Man- 
ning gives as the result of thirty-five years of observation : 
"The chief bar to the working of the Holy Spirit in the 
souls of men is intoxicating drink; " a view shared by 
the late Dean Farrar, who saw in the growing power of the 
public house a peril not only to the church but to the 
nation. 

Our national drink bill for 1902 was $1,454,090,000. 
No wonder that the Mayor of Stamford was silent when 
some ladies visited him on behalf of closed saloons on Sun- 
day and inquired : " whether he thought the liquor influ- 
ence in America was greater than the Christian influence ? " 
Probably he thought only one answer could be given; 
especially when it is remembered that teaching and preach- 
ing in the United States cost only $170,000,000, of which 
the clergymen's support rules at about $25,000,000. Add 
to these figures, if you will, for possible mistakes $30,000,- 
000, and then you have in sharp contrast $1,454,090,000 
for the demoralization and impoverishment of our nation as 
against only $200,000,000 for its recovery and elevation. 
What think you ? Is the Christian influence stronger than 
the liquor influence ? 

Now, view the hold that the traffic has on cities. It has 
been stated by a careful statistician that in Liverpool one 
person in thirty is arrested annually for drunkenness ; in 
Manchester one in thirty-eight ; Dublin one in twenty-four. 
Concerning the latter city it has been said that if all the 



KELIGIOUS PEOBLEM OF THE CITY 69 

public houses were joined together in a row, allowing seven 
feet width to each place, we would have a street five miles 
long — and then we affect to wonder at the poverty of Ire- 
land. Let us come nearer home, and study the question 
from the standpoint of the number of saloons to the popu- 
lation and the influence of high license. In New York, 
where, until the new schedule went into operation, the tax 
was $800 (maximum) we have had one saloon to every 317 
persons. Philadelphia at a license of $1,100 has one to 
744 persons. In Boston, where license is from $500 to 
$2,000, there is a saloon to every 572 persons; but in 
Baltimore the tax is $250 and a saloon is supplied to every 
243 souls. Chicago $500, one saloon to 253. 

In New York last year — 1902— there were 183,749 
arrests for all causes, of which 71,573 were for drunken- 
ness; in Boston 34,500, of which 19,511 were for inebri- 
ation. These figures afford much food for reflection. 
Particularly it is to be remembered that the saloon interests 
are compactly organized in cities as elsewhere. They are 
so strong that in one Connecticut town the chief magistrate 
asserts that public opinion would not sustain him in closing 
the saloon on Sunday in accordance with the law given and 
provided. In New York the remarks of Mayor Low in re- 
lation to the Liquor Dealers' Association gave rise to the 
suspicion that that organization had raised a large corrup- 
tion fund — a charge of which its members ought to have 
purged themselves instead of indulging in threats, as they 
did, for threats are, like suicide, tantamount to confession. 

This combination is practically and solidly arrayed 
against the churches. Its influence is unfavorable to 
thrift, sanity, morality and religion. It benumbs the con- 
science, stupefies the reason, deadens the sensibilities and 
paralyzes the energy. It fills cities with idlers and law- 
breakers, with tattered, neglected children, with brutal 



70 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

homes and disorderly houses. This united and deadly 
enemy of all good has intrenched itself in the great political 
parties, bribes municipalities, through the luring scheme of 
license, corrupts the police, intimidates candidates for 
office, and is even unwilling to give the church one clear 
day in seven to attempt the task of counteracting the 
ravages of strong drink. In London the saloon has its 
doors wide open part of the day on Sunday, and the result 
is seen in the ever-deepening poverty and despair of the 
great city. It is now urged that in the United States we 
should follow the example set by the older country. God 
forbid that we should do so. Could London retrace her 
steps and close the public house on the Lord's Day she 
would do so. Let not America court fresh woes and dis- 
asters by yielding a single point to the rum power. She 
owes something to Christianity, and it is not too much to 
ask that she preserve one day from the demoralization of 
the open saloon, that a reasonably favorable opportunity be 
granted for the reclamation of the fallen and the fortifying 
of the weak against temptation. 

The second of the forces that complicates our problem is 
the Stage. I have no desire in an undiscriminating way to 
assail the theatre. That it is open to criticism, and to 
that of the gravest kind, cannot be denied. Not a few of 
its ardent supporters have conceded that in several re- 
spects its character is objectionable. M. Dumas, himself 
a dramatist, wrote to an acquaintance : " You do not take 
your daughter to see my play. You are right. Let me 
say once for all you must not take your daughter to the 
theatre. It is not mainly the work that is immoral, it is 
the place." And this saying recalls a pregnant fact. In 
this country and in Europe endeavors have been made to 
reform and elevate the stage, and never one has been a 
permanent success. Like Mr. Booth's attempt in New 



RELIGIOUS PROBLEM OF THE CITY 71 

York years ago the public by its indifference has indicated 
clearly that it is not particularly anxious for a theatre 
where realistic art is subordinated to idealistic morals. 
Mr. Clement Scott, the foremost dramatic critic connected 
with the English press, confirms this impression when dis- 
cussing the question of women and the player's calling. 
He says : 

" A woman may take a header into a whirlpool and be 
miraculously saved; but then she may be drowned. I 
should be sorry to expose modesty to the shock of that 
worst kind of temptation, a frivolous disregard of womanly 
purity. One out of a hundred may be safe ; but then she 
must hear things that she had better not listen to and wit- 
ness things she had better not see. Stage life, according 
to my experience, has a tendency to disorder the finer 
feelings, to crush the inner nature of men and women out, 
and to substitute artificiality and hollowness for sincerity 
and truth ; and, mind you, I speak from an intimate ex- 
perience of the stage extending over thirty-seven years. It 
is nearly impossible for a woman to remain pure who 
adopts the stage as a profession. Everything is against 
her, and what is more to be deplored is that a woman who 
endeavors to keep her purity is almost of necessity doomed 
to failure in her career. It is an awful thing to say, and 
it is still more terrible that it is true, but none who know 
the life of the green-room will deny it." 

These animadversions are not dictated by the Puritan 
spirit and by the enemies of amusements, but they are 
freely uttered by those who are most closely related to the 
theatrical profession, and who have every reason to be its 
defenders. Professors of religion may well ask themselves 
whether in view of these damaging representations they 
can with consistency give their support to an institution 
whose total influence is so pernicious, and whether Chris- 



72 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

tianity can ever regain its ascendency in a city where it is 
alleged church members are as frequently found in a play- 
house as in a prayer-meeting. 

We do not deny that the stage has come to exercise 
enormous power over the social and moral life of our 
cities. Indeed, one enthusiast credits it with greater 
influence than is now exerted by the church. I do not 
believe it. But if it is true, it is doubtless largely due to 
the patronage it has received during later years from 
church members ; and it is for them to determine whether 
it is to their honor that they should for the sake of a little 
gratification have subjected their faith to this humiliation. 
This claim of superior prominence and weight in the 
affairs of society ought to arouse Christian people to a 
sense of their responsibility. If it is true that the stage is 
such a ruling force as is claimed, and if the church de- 
clines as it advances, then the world is nearer to a moral 
collapse than ever pessimists have imagined, and the 
disciples of our Lord are nearer to the universal execration 
of posterity for bartering away the noblest heritage of 
humanity for a mess of pottage than they have ever 
dreamed. 

Though I am not prepared to yield to this assertion of 
transcendent power, I am not oblivious to the large place 
occupied by the theatre in the life of our great cities; 
neither am I disposed to affirm that it was never a source 
of wholesome delight. It may debase the taste and unfit 
for the practical duties of the working world ; still it does 
entertain and may be capable of better things. I am not 
hopeful, neither am I dogmatically sure of its final un- 
regeneracy. We have, however, to deal with it as it is, 
and as it is, unquestionably it does not make for Christian 
enthusiasm and activity. Manifestly, the less desirable 
places of amusement unfit their audiences for church 



EELIGIOUS PROBLEM OF THE CITY 73 

attendance, and several of them do their best, by furnish- 
ing Sunday entertainments, to keep them from the 
sanctuary. In not a few theatres of the better class the 
sensational scenes, the excitement and the length of the 
performance leave very little strength for labor on the 
week day, or for worship on the Sabbath. The jaded 
patrons after the intoxicating splendors of the drama 
crave sleep and recuperation rather than business or de- 
votion. 

The influence of the theatre complicates the religious 
problem because it creates in the community a feeling that 
amusement is the serious end of life. In pleading for an 
American National Theatre a gentleman recently urged 
that it was desirable as a school, for in the theatre the 
scholar learns without the necessity of application, and 
is taught while being diverted. We are not intellectually 
quickened in any such way, and the effect of plays 
on the average theatre patron does not bear out the 
contention. The habitues of the theatre are not the most 
brilliant specimens of mankind, and a lad subject to a 
course of instruction from the stage would more likely turn 
out to be in the end a loafer and aimless idler, or a roue 
and shiftless scamp, than an acute lawyer, bank president, 
or captain of industry. Hard headed men of the world 
understand this; they send their boys to school and 
college, and have no confidence in the educational pre- 
tenses of the stage. These they laugh at and the com- 
munity as a whole may be trusted not to be befooled by 
them. 

But in religion the people are not generally as clear- 
sighted and as far-sighted as they are in their worldly 
interests. This passion for amusement and the very 
serious place it occupies in the modern world, seems to 
have begotten in large circles a craving for something 



74 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

bordering on diversion in church services and in public 
worship. The spectacular and the showy in ceremonial, 
and, more immeasurably to be deplored, the grotesque, 
eccentric and pretentious in preaching and preachers, have 
peculiar fascinations for unthinking crowds. They are 
easily caught by the glare, the pomp and other theatricali- 
ties of a self-announced prophet, and though they may 
mock at his delusions, as they are entertained they throng 
his way. It is not easy to speak unobjectionably on this 
point. We have no desire to countenance dullness or 
dreariness in religious services, but it is vital to the cause 
that the people be not encouraged to expect in the church 
diversion, instead of instruction and spiritual inspiration. 

Christianity is not a fiction, it is not a drama, and its 
business is not to share with innumerable shows the art of 
amusing. Its mission is sublime and preeminently spirit- 
ual. It is God's message to fallen man. Its object is to 
bring man back from the fairy realms in which he has been 
wandering that he may touch reality and be real. In 
modern life we are all too frequently the victims of arti- 
ficiality. We deceive ourselves, and we are in danger of 
becoming mere painted things like our surroundings. 
Christianity disillusionizes us. It strips us of our finery, 
decorations and play-acting ways, and forces us to be 
serious, true and thorough. But when we look to its offices 
for not this, but for a continuance in another form of what 
we find in the theatre, we lose the real blessing of religion ; 
and as the church cannot rival the stage in sensational 
effect, so she can never hope to hold her own by an at- 
tempt to imitate its arts. 

The third of the forces antagonistic to religion is the 
slum. Mr. Charles Booth has shown that 30.7 per cent, 
of the population of London live in poverty, poverty mean- 
ing " a life in which there is no margin," and that physical 



EELIGIOUS PEOBLEM OF THE CITY 75 

and moral deterioration inevitably follow — deterioration 
that pollutes the blood, relaxes the energies, dulls the sen- 
sibilities and breeds viciousness, laziness and crime. 
When this downward trend has reached its lowest stage 
and when various types of degenerates have been multi- 
plied the slum is evolved — that deepest depth of social 
degradation and infamy, "the foetid lair," as Mr. W. T. 
Stead has called it, "of the Savage of Civilization." It is 
not surprising that the entire district known as the East 
End of London should be sadly broken up and gloomily 
diversified by these plague spots ; for there the laborer is 
notoriously underpaid, there the sweater grows rich on his 
trade, and there the seedy and impecunious alien is as- 
tutely brought by the employer into competition with the 
native born. It is now coming to be realized that not un- 
til the stream of immigration from the continent is checked 
will it be possible to clean up the filthy stews of the great 
metropolis, though this of itself will not suffice wholly to 
eradicate the evil. Other cities are similarly cursed with 
these wretched neighborhoods, — Paris, Glasgow, Chicago, 
New York — overcrowded, drink-sodden and thieving cen- 
tres, where practically the same specimens of neglected, 
shoeless, hatless, half-naked children, of coarse, brutal and 
murderous men, and of shrunken, cursing creatures of 
both sexes, crowd the street, hang about the doors of 
dram shops and make night hideous by brawls and blows. 
New York has been particularly conspicuous for the 
foulness of her slums. Through the lower East Side and 
in two or three districts on the West the desperate and de- 
graded herd together in appalling numbers, and the de- 
spairing and the outcast intermingle with the underpaid, 
underfed workers, men and women, who toil, sleep, 
sicken and die in the same miserable and dilapidated room. 
On Manhattan Island there are 200,000 and in Brooklyn 



76 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

125,000 dark chambers without windows of any kind and 
without light and ventilation. No wonder that it should 
be reported that thousands of consumptives are walking 
the streets of New York, and that during one year thirty- 
seven were found dead in lodging-houses and hallways. 
This congestion of population and these perilous condi- 
tions, are to some extent due to excessive immigration. 

During March, 1903, 63,000 aliens landed at Castle 
Garden. In 1902 Italy contributed to our population 
77,275, and Austria-Hungary 73,275, and the increase 
continues. Were these strangers to migrate to the unset- 
tled regions of the country they might in a few years prove 
of immense service. Unhappily the tendency is to remain 
in the cities, and there they choke to suffocation the tene- 
ment houses, and overcrowd the labor market. Were a 
similar disturbance to enter annually the world of capital, 
the derangement would not be endured. Serious financial 
complications would ensue, business would be impeded, 
and new enterprises arrested. But the immigrant arrives, 
possibly aided to come by those who are to profit by his 
simplicity and helplessness, and the competition increases, 
multitudes are thrown out of employment, the dehuman- 
izing process goes on, and slowly sink into drunkenness, 
desperation and degradation those who have been pushed 
aside to make room for others. 

It is not uncommon for the existence of the slum to be 
ascribed to the viciousness of its denizens. Occasionally 
the police and the church are held to be responsible for its 
continuance. Poor human nature it must be conceded 
cannot be exonerated from blame, and municipal and ec- 
clesiastical authorities presumably might do better. But 
may it not be that the root of the evil is rather economic 
than civic or religious ? So long as our industrial meth- 
ods are what they are, so long as we assume that it is an 



RELIGIOUS PEOBLEM OF THE CITY YY 

ordinance of nature that there must always be a pauperized 
class, and so long as the creation of wealth is magnified 
by society above the independence, the happiness and 
general well-being of the common people, no measures 
adopted by magistrates and no sacrifices endured by 
Christians will extirpate the slum. 

Professor Marshall, one of England's wisest teachers, 
observes that "the two great forming agencies of the 
world's history have been the religious and the economic," 
suggesting a saying of Aristotle's : "Men must have a 
maintenance before they can practice virtue." Hence, the 
Professor writes : 

"We are at last definitely setting ourselves to inquire 
whether it is necessary that there should be any so-called 
lower class at all ; that is, whether there need be any large 
numbers of people doomed from their birth to hard work 
in order to provide for others the requisites of a refined 
and cultured life, while they themselves are prevented by 
their poverty and toil from having any share or part in 
that life." 

Not until religion and economics join hands and deter- 
mine this question practically, according to the humanism 
of Jesus Christ, will there be any prospect of bringing to 
an end that blot on Christian civilization — the slum. 

The church unaided cannot hope to succeed. What 
effect can her tracts, her missions, her settlements, have on 
the terrible conditions which are reproduced in some other 
portion of a city as soon as she has softened or reformed 
them elsewhere ? She cleans up one squalid neighborhood 
only to find that the filth has accumulated in another. 
Her ministrations have undoubtedly done good, and with- 
out them the insufferable nastiness of slum life would tend 
to asphyxiate civic decency altogether. They have re- 
lieved the sufferings of thousands ; they have purified 



78 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

homes ; they have rescued many children from heathen 
darkness ; and yet the area of the slum has not contracted, 
nor has the total sum of its shame and sorrow perceptibly 
diminished. 

How can we expect its victims to attend on church serv- 
ices ? What heart can they have for the house of God ? 
Have they any special reasons for gratitude which should 
impel them to join with well-to-do worshippers in thanks- 
givings? Whether they have brought their misery on 
themselves, or whether they have been crushed by multi- 
plied failures and misfortunes, they are in no position to feel 
devoutly thankful. We may criticise, blame and denounce 
as much as we please, it will have no effect on them, and 
it will not prove that we would be more religiously inclined 
were we in their place. How, then, can Christians rescue 
these unfortunates ? How can they be won to the saving 
grace of Christ ? This is the vital question ; for not until 
the slum has been blotted out can it be claimed that the 
church has in any genuine way solved the religious prob- 
lem of the city. 

I have deemed it right and just that the real proportions 
of this problem should be ascertained and stated. It is so 
easy for individuals who have given no thought to the sub- 
ject to censure the church for her failures, when, all the 
adverse circumstances being considered, she is entitled to 
some credit for her successes — poor though they are. 
When reputable citizens are in a critical mood they ought 
to ask themselves how far their own indifference to religion 
and their disregard for the social well-being of the people, 
as manifested by their support of the saloon and their tolera- 
tion of the slum, are responsible for her restricted achieve- 
ments. In many instances they fortify the liquor power, 
apologize for vaudeville shows on the Sunday, disguising 
the entertainment under the name of sacred concert, do 



KELIGIOUS PROBLEM OF THE CITY 79 

their utmost to promote Sunday excursions, adopt dishon- 
orable get-rich-quick schemes, vote for corruption in munic- 
ipal politics, and, in a word, do their utmost to check and 
counteract the gracious and healing work of the church, 
and then have the cool impudence to sit in judgment on 
her failures. 

I contend that the judgment is not fair. Society ought 
to take its own part of the blame. At the best she does 
not cooperate with the church as she should for the moral, 
to say nothing of the spiritual, greatness of the city. Her 
attitude is, perhaps, not intentionally inimical to Christi- 
anity, but it is not favorable. The vastness and density of 
the problem we have examined, however, and even her own 
selfish interests which are involved in its existence, ought 
to appeal to her reason and conscience, and should awaken 
sympathy with the church and enthusiastic assistance in 
her work of saving the city from its pollutions and infamies. 

And yet in saying this, and in believing that it ought to 
be said, I have no thought of transferring the supreme re- 
sponsibility from the church to the world. Primarily she 
is accountable to God and humanity for prevailing social 
conditions. She cannot demit her ministry without in- 
curring guilt. It is, therefore, to her of prime importance 
that she should perceive the difficulties in the way of her 
mission. Whoever else may close his eyes to the real 
character of the problem that confronts her in the city, she 
should not consent to be blinded. She must know the 
worst if she is to undertake the best. Self-deception is 
always miserable business. I fear that in religious things 
it has operated very fatally in recent years. We have 
talked so much of the glory of our Christian civilization 
that we have not always realized its shame. " See what 
wonderful philanthropy," we have been exclaiming, "no 
previous time has done so much to relieve the indigent as 



80 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

ours. Has not our age reason for standing apart from the 
hard old ' publican ' eras and thanking God that it is better 
and gives more — tithes of all it possesses — than they?" 

Let us be careful, modest. We felicitate ourselves that 
no other civilization has produced as many benefactors ; 
but have we considered whether any civilization, professing 
the humanitarian sentiments we profess and enriched with 
the wealth we possess, was ever afflicted with so many out- 
cast, melancholy, despairing and pauperized beings as our 
own ? It is true that London, Philadelphia and other cities 
succor thousands of children annually — the Bernardo 
Homes alone have rescued 48,057 waifs in thirty-six years. 
"Admirable! Only possible in a Christian country!" 
And yet, what kind of Christian country is that where 
such a multitude of pitiable dependents are being manu- 
factured, and where such a host of parents are cruelly in- 
different to the well-being of their offspring ? Let us be 
candid and look on both sides of the picture. Christian 
civilization must be judged by its sicknesses as well as its 
hospital ; by the poverity it fosters as well as by the alms it 
bestows ; by the greed it evinces as well as the bounty it 
displays; and by the evils which it breeds and fails to 
eradicate as well as by the sentimental goodness which it 
extols. Thus judged we must admit if we are honest, that, 
having been weighed in the balances it has been found 
wanting. 

It is not pleasant to say these things. Who would not 
rather be silent and let the church dream her sweet dreams 
of imminent world-wide victory ? But woe to the teacher 
who is blind and leads the blind into the ditch. If any- 
thing worthy and adequate is to be attempted to solve the 
religious problem of the city, then Christians must not de- 
lude themselves. If they are content with things as they 
are, there will be no change for the better. The first step 



RELIGIOUS PROBLEM OF THE CITY 81 

towards reform is the candid recognition of the ominously 
grave situation. It must not be obscured by fine speeches, 
nor extenuated by genial optimism. I, at least, have tried 
to be faithful. I, who am no alarmist, and who believe 
that in some way Christ shall prove the victor, have given 
an unvarnished account of the problem. I have neither 
minimized nor exaggerated, and what has been said ought, 
in my opinion, to convince all earnest souls that the time 
for superficial treatment has passed. 

The hour has come for downright seriousness. Trifling, 
child's play and the paltry remedies that have been sug- 
gested of late to the amazement of intelligent beings, 
human or angelic, must be swept away with other rub- 
bish. We are not engaged in a sham battle. Certainly 
the enemy is not firing blank cartridges even if some of us 
have attached importance to such performances on our 
side. The tremendous significance of the problem calls 
for grave and thorough discussion, and for sober matured 
plans of action. What we can do, what we ought to at- 
tempt, I will venture to sketch in the following sermon. 
In the meanwhile let me remind Christians everywhere that 
without seriousness and moral earnestness on their part, 
the wisest, yea, the divinest healing measures will come to 
naught. 



IV 
THE REDEMPTION OF THE CITY 

" And they shall call them The holy people, The redeemed of the 
Lord: and thou shalt be called Sought out, A city not forsaken." — 
Isaiah 62 ; 12. 



r~ ~^HIS is prophecy, not history. It is an ideal, not 
j| a fact. There never has been such a city as this, 

JL but there should be, there will be. The prophet 
is heartening the exiles. How their beloved Jerusalem has 
been devastated, and has with reason been mockingly de- 
rided as Forsaken ! But the reproach shall be rolled away. 
She shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord, 
and a royal diadem in the hand of her God, and she shall 
become a praise in the earth. These great and glorious 
assurances have never as yet been realized. They are for 
the future, and doubtless the venerable Jerusalem in God's 
own time will be reclaimed from the sway of the intoler- 
able Turk, and be restored to more than her former gran- 
deur, both material and spiritual. But in the meantime 
the prediction teaches that it is possible for a city to be 
redeemed. 

While, also, the promise makes clear that God is the 
supreme source of deliverance, it discloses the place and 
necessity for human instrumentality. Watchmen on the 
walls of Jerusalem are not to hold their peace day nor 
night. They are the " Lord's remembrancers," and they 
are to take no rest and give Him no rest. Likewise the 
command goes forth that the way of the people may be 

82 



THE REDEMPTION OF THE CITY 83 

prepared, that the highway may be cast up, the stones 
gathered out and the ensign exalted. Thus the Almighty 
allies with Himself His willing servants, and through them 
executes His purposes. We, therefore, have no reason to 
expect a city to be redeemed, whether in the future or the 
present by some act of sheer omnipotence without the con- 
current endeavors of humanity. 

What, then, can we as Christians do to redeem the 
modern city from its religious apathy and decline, and 
from the demoralizing influence of the saloon, the stage 
and the slum ? 

At the outset we should lay to heart the warning of the 
prophet : " They have seduced my people, saying Peace, 
and there is no peace ; and when one buildeth up a wall, 
behold they daub it with untempered mortar." * The 
figure is expressive, for how shall such a piece of super- 
ficial work stand when the rain floods and hail-stones beat 
upon it? In business and in mechanics thoroughness 
usually commands respect ; but in religion its importance 
is rarely duly esteemed. Then the danger is that in trying 
to redeem the city the most childish expedients will be re- 
lied on and the most frivolous means be adopted. In my 
opinion Christianity has lost its grip on thousands of seri- 
ous minded persons by the infantile ways into which it has 
fallen of late. The prominence given to young people's 
societies and to sweet baby talk in prayer-meetings, and 
the bondage of educated ministers to the sacred whims of 
youthful church members, combined with the organization 
of boys and girls into mission bands, and of infants into 
mission circles, and the creation of clubs and guilds which 
avowedly are to be as free from religion as possible, have 
prejudiced multitudes of people, who inwardly resent the 
imputation that they can be beguiled by such cheap 
1 Ezekiel 13 : io. 



84 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

methods. It is not that some of these societies may not 
be serviceable and even desirable, but it is the importance 
attached to them as measures for the reinvigoration of 
Christianity which seems to the world so transcendently 
silly. In their own place they may be well enough, but as 
agencies for the overcoming of apathy, infidelity and cor- 
ruption they only excite a smile of derision. 

During recent years it has been repeatedly insisted with 
great fervor that if depleted pews are to be occupied and 
diminished income be substantially improved, then the 
service must be enriched. There must be more music and 
of a better quality, more rubric and grander ceremonies, 
shorter sermons and fewer of them, and there must be 
vestments for the choir and robes for the clergy. The 
most obvious reflection called forth by this programme is 
that in multitudes of instances where it has been carried 
out to the full church attendance is not remarkably high 
and spiritual life is frequently discouragingly low. Litur- 
gical congregations are not numerically in advance of the 
non-liturgical, and, if the statistics of the Daily News are 
to be trusted, are not as attractive to men. We are there- 
fore warranted in inferring from an induction of facts, that 
however desirable some of these adjuncts and concomitants 
of religious worship may be, they do not furnish a solution 
of the problem we are considering. Whether they are to 
be fostered or not is purely a matter of taste, of preference 
and of ecclesiastical tradition. But as a cure for the evils 
we have contemplated and tried to measure they are totally 
inadequate. As such they have failed either to compel at- 
tendance on the means of grace, or to produce in the peo- 
ple an exceptional degree of devotion to the cross. 

In saying this I have no desire to disparage the sincerity 
or the ability of those who attach more importance to these 
adornments and accessories than I do. I believe with 



THE EEDEMPTION OF THE CITY 85 

them that everything ought to be done that can be done to 
render the church attractive, and that art should not be 
ignored, either in architecture or music; neither should 
worship become stiff, formal and cold. Could it be proved 
that rituals, liturgies, robes and vestments were potent in 
developing the religious spirit of a community, I would 
not hesitate to commend them. Why not ? Why should 
I be unwilling to wear academic gown with its scarlet and 
purple hood, or surplice also, if it would increase my pul- 
pit power, or give my ministry more unction and saving 
grace ? But would it ? 

The evidence goes to show that the efficiency of clergies 
and churches is not an affair of dress, or of special rites 
and ceremonies. It was not the surplice that made Phillips 
Brooks what he was, and the addition of a surplice would 
not have made Spurgeon a grander preacher. 

Then, as to sermons, there are as many empty sanctuar- 
ies where they are short as where they are long. Brevity 
is not the determining quality. A discourse that is not 
unreasonably short and is reasonably long, if it is worth 
listening to, will be measured by another and different 
standard than an hour-glass. Short sermons may be shal- 
low and stupid, and long ones may be bright and brilliant, 
but it is not the time consumed that makes them either the 
one or the other. 

A magazine editor talking to me on this and kindred 
topics, observed that it was neither the literary style nor the 
number of words that had to do with the real value of a 
story, but solely the human interest in it. The style might 
demand corrections and the length call for condensation, 
but better a long story faultily told charged with what lays 
hold of a man, than a short one rhetorically perfect in 
which he has no conceivable concern. So in preaching. 
The chief strength and charm in a sermon is its human- 



86 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

ness, is that peculiar something, whether the subject treated 
refers to earth, heaven or hell, which appeals to the hearer 
as designed for him, and which he cannot afford to treat 
carelessly. 

Let the impression go abroad that the pulpit has a real 
message, and one that is vitally related to human weal and 
progress, and it will very soon become a commanding in- 
fluence. What, then, is important at the outset, is that we 
abandon our daubing methods and our dependence on the 
superficial and illusive, and get at what is strong and 
effective. 

If the city is to be redeemed the church must be true to 
herself and to her mission. She must examine herself, 
correct her faults, revive her courage, and bring herself 
into close touch with the community, not by denying her- 
self, but by fulfilling herself so completely and attractively 
as to win the multitude to her altars. 

Unhappily there has grown up a feeling of aloofness on 
the part of many people and they look on the church as 
distant from them and quite apart from their ways. Not a 
few wonder for what purpose she exists and whether she 
has not ceased to be of sufficient importance to challenge 
the attention of serious persons. So much of her former 
work has passed over to teachers, social reformers and be- 
nevolent clubs that her value to society has been obscured. 
We hear the questions asked : "Is what remains of suffi- 
cient moment to warrant her further continuance?" 
"Does she serve any practical purpose in our modern 
world?" 

The church cannot afford to ignore these doubts. This 
estrangement is a menace to her very existence. If it shall 
deepen into the conviction that she has been outgrown and 
"lags superfluous on the scene," she may linger a little 
longer but she will not be able to survive the general in- 



THE EEDEMPTION OF THE CITY 87 

difference and neglect. There is yet time to correct the 
misapprehension. If she is sufficiently interested in her 
own perpetuity to make the effort, she can overcome this 
sense of aloofness, and no one else can do it for her. Nor 
does it require that she shall be continually protesting her- 
self to be the people's friend. It only calls for faithfulness 
to her avowed ideals, to her spirit, to her vocation, to her 
opportunities. If she will only take pains to reveal herself 
in her actual ministries as God meant her to be, she will 
not be counted as of little value to society. The people 
will be drawn to her. They will no longer feel indifferent 
to her nor believe that she is indifferent to them. When 
this reconciliation has taken place the redemption of the 
city will not tarry. 

The church should render her courts spiritually attract- 
ive. We know that the air we breathe consists of certain 
gases in combination, oxygen, nitrogen, and a little 
carbon intermixed with some degree of humidity. De- 
range the right proportions, or charge them with noxious 
vapors and the result is depressing and may be stifling. 
We can easily imagine the difference between the pure air 
of the mountains or seas and the thick, poisonous air of a 
stuffy tenement. What atmosphere is to the physical hap- 
piness of humanity, such is the governing spirit of a church 
to the vitality and power of religion. Let doubt, depres- 
sion, discouragement, prevail, and members will go about 
their duties in a listless, formal way ; they will naturally 
hesitate to invite others outside to share in their woebegone 
and wretched condition ; and receiving a gloomy impres- 
sion the outside world will not be drawn to the sanctuary, 
for we love light not darkness, joy not sorrow, hope not 
despair. Hence the church should cultivate the hopeful, 
cheerful mood, should dwell much on the promises of God 
and the assurances of ultimate victory. 



88 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

There should also be pains taken to promote personal 
reciprocal interest, the instincts of a common life, and a 
common brotherhood. I am not pleading for impertinent 
curiosity or idle intrusion in the affairs of others, but for 
that sympathetic affiance by which a company of people 
become a unit, and which finds expression in little cour- 
tesies, thoughtful attentions, downright solicitude, and 
practical helpfulness in seasons of adversity. This grace 
within should unfold into hospitality towards those who 
are without. In the commission the command is "go," 
and the burden of their message is " come." This duty is 
as imperative as the law of righteousness, of baptism or any 
other. The apostolus of the Greek is one sent, a messenger 
who has been sent on a mission, and not one who abides 
in dignity to be sought for. We believe in apostolic de- 
scent. That is, in the obligation of seeking, of inviting, of 
doing what we can to bring all in touch with the ministra- 
tions of the church. Let me add that this simple service 
could not be rendered without thronging the churches with 
happy worshippers. Naaman was offended when the 
prophet directed him to bathe seven times in the Jordan ; 
he had expected that Elisha would have done some pre- 
tentious and sensational thing. The world progresses not 
by the extraordinary, however, but by the ordinary, not by 
a coup de theatre but by the due observance of common- 
place obligations. The resuscitation of evangelical religion 
does not really call for scenic displays, frenetic outbreaks, 
fantastic erratic or erotic beliefs, but for the realization of 
what always should be the spirit of religion. 

/// addition to this the church should revive the true and 
exalted ideal of worship. That it has been overshadowed 
by excessive pomp, formality and sensuousness, or belittled 
by the petty, excruciating and undevout endeavors of the 
average modern choir, cannot be honestly denied. It is a 



THE KEDEMPTION OF THE CITY 89 

fact that the public services of our churches as a whole lack 
drawing power, and are usually looked forward to with any 
other feelings than those of joyous anticipation. Observe 
how tardily congregations gather in the city and how read- 
ily excuses are found for absence from the sanctuary. 
Also, it is painful, but pathetically significant, to note how 
frequently listlessness is betrayed, and how anxious the 
majority seem to depart. There must surely be a lack of 
some element, some distinguishing feature which the soul 
craves in the hour of worship, to account for this deadness. 
That missing feature, or that feature, which in many in- 
stances has been reduced to a pitiable minimum, is spirit- 
uality. We are in danger of carrying into the house of 
God the frivolity of the drawing-room and the irreverence 
of the counting-house ; to convert it into an opera box for 
the display of our finery, or into a club for the display of 
our indifference. The affectations, the insipidities, and 
the artificialities of fashionable life and the rush, the haste 
and the rattle of business are alike out of place in divine 
worship. There, at least, deep seriousness should prevail ; 
there, this present world, with its trumpery tinsel and triv- 
ial ambitions, should be forgotten ; there, nothing should 
be tolerated that casts the shadow of earth on the glory of 
heaven ; and there, the massive majesty of praise, the sub- 
lime simplicity of prayer, the transparent sincerity of preach- 
ing, combined with the quiet devoutness and the thought- 
ful attention of the people should separate such a service 
from every other observed among men. That it is not so, 
but far otherwise, accounts for the fact that worship has 
lost its charm with thousands of our fellow-beings. The 
feeble and altogether paltry endeavors to popularize relig- 
ion, albeit there is a sense in which that highly objection- 
able word may be significant of real power and good, have, 
I presume, driven as many away from sympathy with it 



90 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

and its belongings as were ever drawn together by catch- 
penny attractions. Let Christian people go to church to 
worship God ; let them heartily engage in the service when 
there ; let them by their manner carry conviction to the 
world that they truly believe what their actions symbolize, 
and the novelty of the change, if nothing more, would 
overcrowd our meeting-houses, and ultimately, by its deep 
significance, would silence the voice of scorn and soften 
the heart of stone. 

There are some things difficult to define, and spirituality 
is one of them. Nobody has ever yet given a sufficient 
description of a particular perfume, and mere word-paint- 
ing cannot reproduce special colors. So spirituality is 
something that language fails to portray. We recognize 
its presence, we feel its power, but we cannot in set phrase 
express just what we mean. It is morality, and something 
more. Without morality it is impossible ; and yet morality 
is measurably less than the term denotes. Perhaps it may 
intelligibly be defined as devout morality, ethical conduct 
springing from living intercourse with the Supreme — the 
transfusion of divine love in human deeds. Certainly, 
were there more of heaven in the church, there would be 
less of infidelity in the world. Where spirituality obtains 
in worship, there the divine permeates song and prayer and 
word. The Eternal interblends with the temporal and 
there prevails a profound and elevating sense of intercom- 
munion between God and man. The entire experience is 
different from every other. There is in it nothing that 
corresponds to the whirl and excitement of a political 
meeting, nothing that approaches the sensuous pleasure of 
a theatre or even the sweet joys of the domestic circle. It 
is rather a peculiar and exceptional consciousness of the 
awful majesty of the spiritual universe, of the deep and 
solemn mysteries of personal existence and of the ineffable 



THE REDEMPTION OF THE CITY 91 

greatness of Him who is above all, and who yet shares with 
all, with the heavens that declare His glory and the intel- 
ligences that unite in His praise, His wondrous fullness 
that filleth all in all. Spirituality seems to be the trans- 
mitting of this consciousness to anthem and hymn, to sup- 
plication and meditation, and to the message that falls 
from the preacher's lips, and is too exalted and too en- 
nobling to be vulgarized by extravagances or by garish 
observances. 

Is it necessary to add that this higher worship in the 
sanctuary depends in the last analysis on devoutness in the 
private life? The congregation and aggregation of a 
thousand ice morsels will not make a flame, and the meet- 
ing of as many souls charged through and through with 
secularism will not yield spiritual fervor. The reported 
decline in family prayer, and the earthiness of so many 
professors of religion, are largely accountable for the lack 
of joy and heartiness in the public services of the church. 
Nor will there be any perceptible change wrought by the 
multiplications of spectacular effects, and none until 
Christians rekindle the home altar-fires and realize the 
need in their daily life of constant communion with the 
Highest. 

Beyond even this, the church, if she is to regain her hold 
on the city, must cultivate breadth of mind and expansive- 
ness in her activities. Perhaps a greater breadth of view 
obtains in large communities than in country places ; at 
least we know that sectarianism prevails more extensively 
where the population is sparse than where it is dense. The 
difference may not now be as great as formerly; but 
whether it is or not, the fact remains that where multitudes 
are engaged together in business, and where they are ac- 
customed to bear and forbear in the interest of temporal 
success, they cannot appreciate the scrupulousness that 



92 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

stands on questions of rites and ceremonies. While I do 
not believe it necessary to be faithless to any conviction, 
there is a demand for union among Christian bodies if sin 
is to be overcome and souls are to be saved. Think of the 
magnitude of the problem to be solved, and then decide 
whether any one denomination is equal to the task. Here 
is iniquity organized, binding in unholy fellowship its 
various phases ; and what can the few poor sheep of one 
fold do against the howling pack of wolves ? Children of 
God must accustom themselves more and more to look be- 
yond the narrow range of their little household, and assert 
their kinship in righteousness with all who love our com- 
mon Lord, and who desire to do His holy will. In no 
other way can we hope to present such a front as will shake 
the powers of darkness. 

In cities expansiveness is the rule. We have cheap pa- 
pers, cheap literature — that is, these things are made ac- 
cessible to the people. Art invites them, science courts 
them, and no cause can prosper which intentionally or ig- 
norant! y alienates itself from them. Especially must relig- 
ion fail if it seeks to be exclusive and aristocratic. It 
came by One who was one of the people, it was preached 
directly to the people, and its interests were committed, not 
to the priests, but to the people. The people, then, have 
a right to its blessings, and they should be placed within 
their reach. To do this, city churches must not only have 
their missions and sustain them, but they ought as well to 
feel a genuine delight when the humble seek their assem- 
blies. The poor do not ask for the gospel as a gift ; they 
are willing to contribute. They demand either that all 
shall give for its support freely according as they have 
been prospered, and pew rents be abolished, or that 
such rentals be placed within the limits of their means. 
But, whatever plan is followed, we should in every feasible 



THE KEDEMPTIOJST OF THE CITY 93 

way, carry the word of life to all classes and conditions of 
our population. 

A listless or dead institution can never hope to flourish 
among the living activities of a thriving, driving city. We 
do not resort to the cemetery for any other purpose than to 
look on the last resting-place of some departed one ; neither 
will the people be drawn to churches from whence vitality 
has fled, unless it is from the curiosity to see where the 
corpse-like soul of some friend or relative has found a 
tomb. The curiosity quenched, they never come again. 
But where there is ceaseless activity, where one conquest 
opens the way for another, where one endeavor is followed 
by others, where the hum of spiritual industry is heard 
continually, and where rest is never sought and never ex- 
pected, — there is a charm about such a church that is 
potent for good. Moreover, be it understood, that every- 
thing that is accomplished for Christ in cities can only be 
brought about by aggression and invasion. The barriers 
reared by indifference must be broken through ; the breast- 
works reared by business or by dissipation must be 
stormed. The people will not of themselves seek the 
church — the church must seek the people. She must 
appreciate their necessities, realize their difficulties, and 
go after them, into mansions and hovels, counting-houses 
and squalid garrets, — into all places of habitation and 
resort. When she does this, and when she is fully alive to 
every opportunity of good, then the talk about her in- 
ability to meet the spiritual necessities of great centres of 
life will cease, and her saving power be devoutly recog- 
nized. 

In addition, for the city church to be successful she must 
provide adequate facilities for her work. Do we ever 
consider how totally unfitted many of our sanctuaries are 
to the needs of the new time ? Everywhere in metropolitan 



94 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

communities the eye rests on improved buildings, massive 
and convenient, devoted to business, while on every side 
are antiquated, poorly ventilated, and occasionally dark, 
grim and unsanitary structures set apart for religious uses. 
With only a moderate number of exceptions, these struc- 
tures were reared many years ago, in London perhaps a 
century or two ago, in New York and Boston possibly 
more than half a century ago; and were fitted for the 
wants and to meet the demands of a society vastly differ- 
ent from our own. These meeting-houses have to a great 
extent been outgrown. They are not attractive and they 
are not adapted to practical and aggressive Christianity. 

Sunday-school rooms are only a makeshift and do not 
appeal to children. They were not built with reference to 
their interests, but for prayer-meeting purposes. For lack 
of suitable accommodations, accommodations which I am 
ashamed to say have only been furnished by relatively a 
few congregations, the scholars have been crowded in 
dingy vestries or chapels, sometimes seated on high seats 
or in stiff-backed pews, and have been obliged to make the 
most of their surroundings. 

This inconsiderateness is only a part of the short-sighted 
policy that has been followed by the church in dealing 
with the religious education of the young. She talks a 
good deal about this education, protests against ecclesias- 
tical control of public instruction, and yet what does she 
herself do ? Her donations of money to this object fall far 
below its importance. She has begrudged the outlay for 
fitting up suitable school accommodations, and while she 
is setting apart millions for the establishment of colleges, 
and for the benefit of higher learning she has created no 
endowments for the support of superintendents and expert 
teachers, and for the more complete religious education of 
children. Throughout Europe and America, particularly 



THE BEDEMPTION OF THE CITY 95 

in cities, hundreds of thousands of boys and girls are 
growing up in ignorance of God and the Bible, preparing 
to constitute a yet larger non-church-going population than 
exists at this time. The next generation will be less 
amenable to religious influences than the present, unless 
something worthy the enormous interests at stake shall be 
done to gather the not neglected hosts of little ones to the 
side of wise and sympathetic Christian teachers. 

It must also be apparent that few of our sacred edifices 
in cities have been so arranged as to furnish young people 
with the means necessary for their guilds, socials and 
classes which are of so much value to them. Multitudes 
of youths and maidens come annually from their country 
homes seeking employment, and many of them fall into 
evil ways and perish. Their miserable fate is not due to 
any special antagonism on the part of the city. A city is 
not cruel and does not conspire. It never stops to plot, it 
only attends to its own affairs. The boy and girl find 
themselves the centre of absolute indifference. They are 
not noticed, they are not restrained by the feeling that 
friends are taking a kindly interest in them and they 
wander into the ways of sin. In New York, London, 
Chicago and other cities pool rooms are thronged every 
night with those who have come up from the country, and 
who are not old enough to resist the fascinations of various 
games. They are lonely. Where shall they go? The 
majority of churches have no rooms set apart for their use. 
It never has, perhaps, occurred to them that they ought to 
house these tempted ones and furnish them with some 
means of harmless diversion. And from their altars these 
inexperienced and immature ones drift into vice and final 
ruin and wretchedness. 

If she insists on overlooking the claims of the young she 
will only render the present religious crisis more acute, and 



96 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

if she intends to respect them, then she must depart from 
her antiquated church arrangements and provide for the 
special work which is forced on her by the changed con- 
ditions of the age. 

The day of the small, unmeaning meeting-house in big 
cities has passed away. In saying this it is not necessary 
to construe it so literally as to assume that there may not 
be a need yet in certain quiet, retired neighborhoods for 
its survival. I am thinking of the congregations that are 
planted near the heart of a metropolis, and that are called 
on to lead in Christian endeavor. These congregations 
must abandon the contracted houses of worship, which 
when constructed were not designed to serve any end other 
than what we call divine service. 

In the future church edifices should be sufficiently large 
and commanding to be inviting and hospitable. These 
small, dwarfed, meagre looking church houses, of which 
there are so many, seem to say by their appearance to the 
people: — We never expected you to attend, we have not 
provided for you, and we would not know where to put 
you were you to come in. Consequently, they stay away. 
The opposite impression is produced by a massive, stately 
building. Crowds usually go where there is room for 
them. Ministers of experience know that, as a rule, it is 
easier to fill an auditorium seating three thousand than it 
is to fill a chapel seating about five hundred. Moreover 
where these great congregations are gathered, the worship 
is more inspiring and it is not as difficult to raise all the 
money necessary for the support of the work as it is where 
the attendants are few — and select. 

The typical modern church will be simple, dignified, 
artistic, cheerful — always bright and cheerful — no " dim 
religious light " whatever. Every day in the week it will 
be open to the weary for rest, prayer and praise. At ap- 



THE REDEMPTION OF THE CITY 97 

pointed hours competent persons will be present that con- 
solation, sympathy, assistance may be rendered to the suf- 
fering and troubled. Every evening religious services will 
be held, and at the same time, in other parts of the build- 
ing, classes, guild meetings, lectures and innocent amuse- 
ments. On the Sabbath, in addition to the regular seasons 
of worship, there will be special services arranged for chil- 
dren in which visual instruction will be given and atten- 
tion be bestowed on musical training. To meet the de- 
mands arising from various kinds of work the church will 
have connected with it a parish house, so that the relation 
of the two may be manifest, and so that many things may 
be done at the same time and practically under the same 
roof. Such a cathedral institution, not administered as a 
mission among the poor and desolate, where now a faint 
resemblance to it may occasionally be met, but located in 
the heart of a city and among the well-to-do, would con- 
vince the most skeptical that the church is related to the 
common life of the world, and is not estranged from the 
actual needs and interests of humanity. In fifty years 
from now, if Christianity survives and advances as I be- 
lieve it will, this ideal will be the commonplace type of a 
church, and any other will receive only scant approval. 

Then, finally, for the church to regain her hold on the 
city she must identify herself with whatever makes for the 
social well-being of the community. While environment is 
not everything, or the chief thing, it is something, and 
that, too, of great importance. Religion suffers when 
poverty deepens into squalor and filth, and when crime 
and vice are encouraged by municipal corruption. Chris- 
tianity wilts and becomes nerveless when the atmosphere 
she is compelled to breathe is poisoned by the miasma of 
civic rottenness. She is bound to uphold righteousness, 
and dare not withhold her support from men and measures 



98 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

that make for reform. She cannot but antagonize the rum 
shop, and expose the sophistical arguments for its being 
open from one p. m. to eleven at night on Sunday. 

How the powers of darkness must laugh derisively at 
the simplicity of those who believe that the saloon would 
keep faith and not open and sell before or after the hours 
named — as if the saloon ever kept faith with anybody ! 
How delusive the plea that it should be granted this addi- 
tional lease of power to prevent the violation of law; 
whereas it is undeniable, that even should the remedy pre- 
vent the violation of the excise statutes, it could only lead 
to the violation of others — the laws of sobriety, honesty 
and peace. When it is insisted that certain excise ordi- 
nances should be repealed because they cannot be enforced, 
we may remind the pleader that the same may be said 
about the revenue laws against smuggling, which are being 
evaded all the time. If the first class of legislation leads 
to dishonesty and bribery, so does the second. Why not 
then abolish both and government confess its incompetency? 

While Christianity should protest against whatever en- 
actments make for intemperance, she should not forget 
that there is need for a substitute to take the place of the 
saloon. Not without show of reason is the plea that the 
poor need places of resort, diversions, and lacking these 
drift into the bar-rooms, and that the only remedy lies in 
providing them with something better. An enterprise in 
this direction has been attempted in England with success. 
We ought to face the issue in America. The regeneration 
of amusement ought now to receive the careful attention 
of Christian business men, and if the subject could only 
be approached without prejudice, and with the distinct ap- 
preciation that wholesome entertainment is desirable and 
right, much could be done to abate the saloon nuisance 
and to diminish the number of cheap gambling resorts and 



THE KEDEMPTION OF THE CITY 99 

degrading shows. Capital would be needed, but, as ex- 
periments have proven, the investment would be financially 
sound and the good accomplished would yield incalculable 
advantages to the entire community. What is really a 
greater desideratum than capital is downright common 
sense, and an earnest purpose to save the masses, not by 
urging them to become anchorites and ascetics, but by a 
courageous and intelligent attempt to furnish them with 
the necessary means for rational and elevating enjoyment. 

In accord with this spirit, the church, likewise, should 
constantly put forth her energies for the comfort and hap- 
piness of the general public. She should lead the citizens 
to think of a city as one great family having a common 
life, to the contentment and gladness of which no indi- 
vidual ought to be indifferent. What pride can persons 
take in a metropolis where the struggle for existence has 
been rendered degrading and despairing? "Is the city 
my mother? Is she not rather an enemy? " Such ques- 
tions must often occur to the denizens of sweaters' dens, 
and to those slaves of toil who, if they cease to work, know 
they must cease to live. Napoleon III is represented, on 
seeing groups of discontented workmen on the streets, as 
commanding one of his officers to have the dome of des 
Invalides regilded. He knew that the work would divert 
the attention of the people from their real or fancied 
wrongs. Such a policy we hope may never be necessary 
in any American town, but if it is to be rendered unneces- 
sary we must cultivate more and more the family feeling 
among our citizens. 

The suppression of pauperism and the reduction of 
mendicancy to the minimum are matters of prime impor- 
tance ; and the prosperity and happiness of the public de- 
mand that this be accomplished, not by an increase of 
charities, but by an increase of industries. We have 



100 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

Commissions composed of prominent men on conciliation, 
on art, on banking and many other things, but we have 
no Commission on Labor — that is, on the question how can 
labor be furnished to the greatest number of citizens and 
supplied in such a way as not to interfere with the right 
of childhood to its childhood, and in such a manner as to 
secure a reasonable support to the toiler? This is the 
most important social and industrial inquiry of our time. 
It ought to be dealt with seriously, scientifically and 
squarely. In no other way can we really begin to make 
a final end of the slum, of squalor, social sin and social 
shame. 

The world's history demonstrates that the more there is 
given for relief, the larger and more imperative the needs 
and demands become. Almsgiving may alleviate, but it does 
not cure, and if continued only creates a class of hopeless 
and helpless paupers. This class becomes a tax on the re- 
sources of a city, a source of peril to its health and morals, 
and comes in time to feel that it has a right not only to the 
dole it receives but to far more, and therefore evinces no 
sense of gratitude for benefits conferred. The situation is 
unnatural and dangerous, and the practical master minds 
of the age should give it immediate attention. 

Then, this family spirit, this identity of interest, will 
further be promoted by placing within the reach of all the 
common blessings of our civilization. This we do in part 
now. We should do it yet more completely. There are 
our public schools, our courses of free lectures, our open 
air concerts, and our holidays. These are steps in the 
right direction. But we need more schoolhouses and in- 
creased facilities for the enlightenment of the people. We 
need, also, in every great district a free Communal Hall, 
somewhat after the plan of the " People's Palace " in Lon- 
don, free to the citizens, where music, cheerful diversions, 



THE KEDEMPTION OF THE CITY 101 

books, papers would be accessible, and where human inter- 
course under proper conditions would be possible. These 
centres would deepen and intensify the civic spirit, and 
would make the humblest feel his oneness with the city. 
If through endowments and gifts of the wealthy many of 
the churches could be made free to the public, the indigent 
would not be hindered by their poverty from participating 
in worship, and the religious life would be more general, 
and more highly prized than it is at present. On this 
whole question the Duke of Devonshire has recently ex- 
pressed himself eloquently and earnestly : 

" We in these days live fuller and more active lives than 
our predecessors. Every class, from the highest to the 
lowest, from the wealthiest to the poorest, look to greater 
advantages, and to a better and higher life. We all of us, 
whatever our position, want better, more comfortable, and 
more sanitary houses; we want better and more com- 
modious streets ; we want better means of locomotion ; we 
want better and purer water ; we want more light ; we 
want more care bestowed on the protection of persons and 
property; we want better provision against disease; we 
want better care of the aged, the sick and the infirm ; we 
want more amusement for our leisure hours ; and, above 
all, we want increased facilities for the education of our 
lives. All these things, to a greater or less degree the rich 
and wealthy are able to provide for themselves ; but they 
can only be provided, so far as it is possible to provide 
them, for the masses by the organized and collective efforts 
of our municipalities. I cannot conceive any more inter- 
esting study than that of the means by which, without im- 
pairing the independence, the self-reliance, and the self- 
helpfulness of our people, these improvements in their 
social and material condition can be provided for them." 

An English aristocrat can talk in this enlightened, dem- 



102 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

ocratic fashion, and be commended, but probably were he 
an American and in an American pulpit, he would be crit- 
icised by our plebeian plutocrats for putting dangerous ideas 
in the heads of the people. And yet, if the church is to 
grow and is to move the present age to righteousness, she 
must take an active interest in just such sentiments ; and 
should put forth as her programme for municipal peace, 
purity and progress — 

Work for all and all for work; and alms, if possible, 
for none ; and religion, education, privilege, diversion im- 
possible to none and available to all. 

It was, I believe, Henry of Navarre who said as he for- 
sook the Protestant cause: " Paris is worth a mass." 
Whether, as he lay down to death by the dagger of 
Ravaillac, he still held to this valuation, I know not, but I 
am quite certain that the redemption of the city is worth a 
sacrifice. If ever it should be lost to Christianity, the 
country will soon be lost to Christianity as well, and neither 
will be saved to Christianity unless believers are prepared 
to pay the price — in thought, anxiety, in pecuniary offer- 
ings and personal endeavors. It is an illusion to assume 
that a great system, wise provisions, and sacred traditions, 
developed in former times, are of themselves sufficient to 
arrest present encroachments of evil. Neither institutions 
nor laws, neither Bibles nor Sabbaths, are competent to 
deal with the invasions and the active assaults of the 
powers of darkness. The man behind the guns, and not 
merely the guns ; the man in the driver's cab of the engine, 
and not merely the engine ; the policeman and the courts 
back of the law ; and the living Christian back of resolu- 
tions, creeds, usages and custom, are essential if practical 
results are to be achieved. 

Rudyard Kipling in his new volume of poems has one 
entitled " The Dykes." It is founded on the familiar idea 



THE REDEMPTION OF THE CITY 103 

that the barriers reared by the people of Holland long ago 
to keep out the sea need to be constantly watched, strength- 
ened, repaired. The poet pictures vividly the folly of the 
new generation ; for the descendants of the builders have 
come to take for granted that these barriers will continue 
to guard their fields from inundation though they are not 
actively concerned in their preservation. 

" Time and again has the gale blown by and we were not afraid ; 
Now, we come only to look at the dykes — the dykes our fathers 
made." 

This confidence, however, is sadly misplaced, for the 
hour arrives when the gale and tide combine to sweep 
away the structures that have withstood for many years 
their rage. The ocean deluges the land and desolation 
reigns. Then it is, when darkness has spread over the sky 
and night is terrible with the groans of the dying and the 
fears of the living, that the careless and guilty ones cry : 

" Now, we can only wait till the day, wait and apportion our 

shame ! 
These are the dykes our fathers left, but we would not look to the 

same. 
Time and again were we warned of the dykes, time and again we 

delayed ; 
Now, it may fall, we have slain our sons as our fathers we have 

betrayed." 

This lesson needs to be carefully pondered by the follow- 
ers of Christ. The fathers built the dykes — reared walls 
of defense — theologies, worships, missions, philanthropies 
— and hoped by these provisions to check the inroads of 
infidelity and iniquity. But we may trust these things too 
implicitly and assume because they have done well in the 
past they will always of themselves prove equal to any 



104 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

strain in the future. The dykes were not sufficient. 
Neither is the sum of all that constitutes organized Chris- 
tianity, whether of doctrine or of machinery, adequate to 
accomplish what must be done if religion is to bless the 
world. 

It is Christianity //z/ s the Christian — the Christian super- 
vising the defenses, repairing the breaches and unceasingly 
battling with the floods of wrong and corruption — that may 
hope to redeem the city and revive the faith of her citizens. 

Does he consider the city worth the sacrifice ? 



CHRIST AND THE COUNTRY CHURCH 

" And He went round about the villages teaching." — Mark 6 : 6. 

JESUS did not neglect the small communities remote 
from the large cities and at a distance from the public 
highways. Where the caravans of commerce rarely, 
if ever, halted, and where the fashions and foibles, the 
splendors and the shame of civilization had not corrupted 
the simple life of the people, the gracious Master did not 
disdain to dwell, and, as at Bethany, to draw the humble 
inhabitants into friendly intercourse. 

He knew that the poorest hamlet had rights in His love, 
that the shepherds and husbandmen had souls to save, and 
that the entire countryside would only be the fairer, the 
purer and the sweeter for His ministry and message. More 
than once He went back to the little rambling town of 
Nazareth, where He had spent His early years, that the 
plodding men and women who had been intimate with Him 
from His boyhood might walk in His light and rejoice in 
His salvation. And when with all the insolent bigotry and 
dogmatic narrowness, frequently characteristic of rustic and 
provincial communities, they thrust Him forth with cruel 
derision, He did not turn His back in anger on all such 
settlements. No ; He was only grieved at their blindness 
and went on His way. As it is written, " He went round 
about the villages teaching ; " or as it might have been ex- 
pressed, "to other villages; " for after all, Nazareth, with 
its stupid assumptions, was little better. 

105 



106 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

Nor can it be proven that He was much more successful, 
or was received more cordially in these nameless localities 
than He was by the citizens of Nazareth. Everywhere He 
was treated with incredulity and sometimes with incivility. 
The peasantry generally would have none of Him, and 
apparently were less disposed to examine His credentials 
than were those who had felt in some degree the compara- 
tively liberalizing influences of a city like Jerusalem. This 
is a significant circumstance, and not without its bearing 
on the religious condition of our age. 

Christianity at a relatively early date might domesticate 
itself in Rome, or in Alexandria, or in Constantinople, and 
rear its altars in heathen temples ; but the rural districts 
were not equally accommodating and hospitable. As 
Pudentius terms them, the " pago implicitos" clung to 
their venerable mythologies and superstitions, and for a 
long while resisted to the death the advance of the Cross. 
The Latin word "paganus " means a villager, and it came 
to be used as descriptive of a cult when that cult had been 
abandoned by refined society and was cherished with 
singular devotion by peasants. Among them it found sup- 
porters, and when politicians, plutocrats, philosophers and 
princes had become Christian — at least nominally — these 
sturdy children of the field and forest continued to render 
homage to the false deities whose names were interwoven 
with the history of the empire. The Pagan party was 
vigorous in the East as late as the sixth century, and traces 
of it were easily found in the northern mountain districts, 
in the villages of Piedmont, in the islands of the Western 
Mediterranean, and among the South Saxons during the 
four hundred years that followed the advent of the Holy 
Spirit. 

Evidently these country folk, these semi -barbarians, were 
not distinguished by the "open mind," were not tolerant 



CHEIST AND THE COUNTEY CHUECH 107 

of religious rivalries, and were indisposed to imitate the 
cultured Athenians in perpetually craving new things. 
They loved the old, clung to the old, and desperately 
fought for its survival and supremacy. 

This uncompromising and stolid antagonism, though it 
must at every turn have perplexed and disheartened primi- 
tive Christianity, may not be without some measure of 
comfort in these times of religious crisis. For if dwellers 
in hamlet and village are so tenacious of the faith, and if 
they are not easily seduced from their allegiance to its 
teachings, then we may hope that now, when in cities 
multitudes are neglecting the house of God and are in re- 
volt against the supremacy of spiritual things, they at least 
will stand faithful and will preserve the precious heritage 
received from Christ and His apostles. We must admit, 
however, that we are not sure of this comfort. It is inti- 
mated that there are signs of wavering. Here and there 
voices are sounding an alarm. Church attendance, we are 
told, is declining in small towns and in rural neighbor- 
hoods. Conversions, it is said, are not as numerous as in 
former years, and other tokens are not lacking of religious 
decadence. 

If these representations have any sufficient foundations, 
remembering how slow and unwilling country people are to 
abandon the faith in which they have been reared, we are 
confronting a state of affairs more portentous and more 
ominously fraught with serious consequences than appear 
on the storm-charged clouds in other quarters. If they, 
who naturally and by force of habit are conservative and 
suspicious of change, falter and doubt, if the present re- 
ligious crisis has extended to the country, then we are face 
to face with a graver issue than even the religious problem 
of the city presents. 

But what are the facts ? To what degree has Christian- 



108 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

ity lost its hold on the smaller towns, villages, and rural 
districts in this land and in others? Has it perceptibly 
declined in influence ? If so, what are the causes ? Can 
anything be done in the emergency ? Can the turn in the 
tide be stayed or must it be left to flow onward to the sea, 
carrying with it many of the noblest dreams of humanity ? 
Is history repeating itself? Have we reached a period 
when the teachings of the Master have lost their charm for 
those who dwell on farms and in closest fellowship with 
nature, and are they now, as at the first, rejecting Him who 
came to be the world's chief benefactor and only Saviour ? 
These inquiries are imperative and demand serious con- 
sideration, and in bestowing on them the thought they de- 
serve we doubtless shall arrive at some definite impressions 
regarding 

Christ and the Country Church. 

The cities of Europe and America cannot afford to be 
indifferent to the religious condition of "regions beyond." 
While it is true that the vast aggregations of humanity in- 
fluence the less densely populated provincial centres, let it 
not be supposed that the latter have no perceptible influ- 
ence over the former. They act and react on each other. 
The day was when Paris proudly claimed to be France, 
and occasionally Londoners may have been ambitious for 
their metropolis to be England. But all such pretensions 
are fanciful and less likely now to be realized than in the 
past. In no instance does a man so betray his ignorance 
of the age in which he lives as when he assumes that the 
city rules the country, and that what passes muster there is 
bound to be accepted by the rural population. It is well 
before being sure of anything, either political or religious, 
to wait until the " back counties " are heard from. Intel- 
ligence is now so wide-spread, the intercourse between 



CHEIST AND THE COUNTRY CHUKCH 109 

large and small communities so frequent and intimate, and 
education so common and popular that, as some one has 
said before, the brains of a modern nation are no longer 
confined to the head, but are diffused through the entire 
body. 

Whether it be Berlin, Vienna, New York, or Boston, a 
large and ever increasing proportion of their inhabitants 
comes from hamlets, from prairie homes and from lonely log 
cabins where youth has dreamed its dream of fame and 
wealth. On a thousand dusty highways at this very mo- 
ment Whittingtons innumerable are plodding along hoping 
to be some day the honored lord mayor, the chief burgo- 
master, or lord provost of a London, an Antwerp or an 
Edinburgh. The indebtedness of cities to such adventur- 
ous comers is not denied. They have been and they are 
prominent and influential in civic affairs, and they are 
among the greatest leaders in finance, literature, industry, 
philanthropy and religion. What New York is to-day for 
good or bad is in no small degree due to their activity and 
influence ; and every other metropolis, in its virtues and 
vices, in its dignity and degradation, reveals traces of their 
handiwork. 

For be it understood that the balance is not always in 
favor of the courageous rustic. What he has done to ad- 
vance municipal purity, prosperity and legitimate pride is 
not challenged. Indeed, it is so often extolled, that gen- 
erally the other side is overlooked. And yet if he brings 
with him lawless passions, impure appetites, shiftless hab- 
its and a reckless, profane, irreligious temper — as he some- 
times does — and if he seeks in his new sphere a place 
where he can throw off restraints, he becomes to the com- 
munity a source of moral corruption, as a polluted stream 
from the interior, contaminated by the sewage of many 
meagre settlements, will infect the blood of the greatest 



110 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

cities. It is, therefore, a matter vitally affecting the well- 
being of every such city that the source of supply be kept 
as pure and as sweet as possible, and that these bucolic 
contributions to its citizenship bring with them only that 
which refines, elevates and purifies. 

The position of Christ in the country church, the wel- 
come He receives and the influence He exerts, will go a 
long way in determining the character of those who come 
to play their part in metropolitan life. This, I assume, 
will be conceded. It will, also, be admitted that the re- 
ligious condition of those who till the soil, who drive the 
plough, who delve and mine, and who dwell remote from 
the marts of trade, should never cease to be the serious 
concern of all who make their home in the city. 

It may not be superfluous for me to add that spiritual 
blessings are far from being unimportant to those whose lot 
is cast in the obscure and lonely localities of a nation. 
Much has been written in praise concerning the beauties 
of nature and of its softening and harmonizing influences. 
Rhapsodists, like Ruskin, and poets, like Wordsworth, 
have familiarized us with its manifold charms, with the 
rich, variant hues of its foliage, the radiant colors of its 
flowers, the interfusion and interblending of its lights and 
shadows, the drowsy and musically monotonous hum and 
buzz of its insects and the solemn grandeur of its shaggy 
glens and mist- wreathed mountain heights. To judge from 
the impassioned eloquence of various authors it might be 
inferred that human innocence, human dignity and happi- 
ness could never fail in those chosen spots where nature is 
at her best, and where man is shut up to communion and 
fellowship with the invisible spirit of the scene. 

May it not be, however, that these ecstasies are some- 
what overwrought? Let us admit the occasional exalted 
mood that may be inspired by the ocean, by the large 



CHRIST AND THE COUNTRY CHURCH 111 

gloom of a dense forest, by the golden tints of harvest 
fields, or by the glint of silvery dew on the grass and the 
warblings of light-winged birds in the upper air. Still, 
this is not all. There is another side. It has been stated 
that women grow melancholy on their lonely homesteads, 
and that not a few of late years have been taken from farm- 
houses on the prairies and from log huts on the frontier to 
the lunatic asylum. Scrutinize the faces of men who 
gather at some county seat on Court day, and mark the 
signs of depression, discontent and weariness. Their fea- 
tures are not lit up with pleasant memories, or with cheer- 
ing anticipations. They look like men who have found 
nothing in life and who have no particular interest in any- 
thing beyond the price of cattle or the possible value of 
the ripening grain. They rarely smile; they are not 
usually responsive, and they speak and act in a dull, slow, 
cautious kind of way. Nature has done very little for 
them. She has not enlarged their horizon, deepened their 
sensibilities, or illumined their mind. There are, we ad- 
mit, many exceptions to this dreary type of character. But 
generally speaking the dwellers in rural districts are thus 
unimpressionable and unimaginative. 

The country, then, is not sufficient of itself. Something 
more is needed: — Religion; Christ! One is needed to 
companion with the solitary in the lonely vale or on the 
mountainside ; one, to fill the soul with visions of eternal 
peace and beauty ; and one, who knows how to arouse all 
that is true and noble in the heart of man. I am not sur- 
prised that women go crazy on the seemingly illimitable 
plains if they have no comradeship with the Master. Cul- 
prits have been driven to madness by the silence and nar- 
rowness of their cell. But vastness is as bewildering as 
contraction, and the stillness of a spacious desert is as op- 
pressive as the unbroken quiet of a meagre dungeon. 



112 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

Neither am I astonished, if they are strangers to our Lord, 
that men who have spent their days in villages or in rude 
towns on the edge of the wilderness, are dull, dumb and 
despondent. They have little to divert them, little to res- 
cue them from brooding and little to thrill, excite and 
startle. 

The peasant class of Scotland, to which such virile, God- 
fearing men as the fathers of Robert Burns and Thomas 
Carlisle belonged, was respected throughout Europe a hun- 
dred years ago for its intelligence, its courage and nobility. 
But these were Christian peasants. They were men of 
The Book. Their strength, their sagacity, their cheeriness, 
and their patriotic interest in public affairs, was not the 
result of their communion with nature, but of their ac- 
quaintance with the Bible and its Author. The inference 
is transparent. The country needs more than the country 
— it needs the Christ. Could my voice reach all those who 
dwell, whether in the old world or the new, by themselves 
apart in the forest or in the desert, or in the humble com- 
munities that lie aside from the thronged metropolis, I 
would entreat them by their loneliness, by their monotonous 
days, by their depressing cares and sorrows, to cherish the 
faith of the cross, and cling unwaveringly to its glorious 
assurances and hopes. 

If we may believe some students of our times this exhor- 
tation comes not a moment too soon. The religious prob- 
lem of the city, we are told, is matched by the religious 
problem of the country. Even there in its very stronghold 
evangelical Christianity, it is said, appears to be decadent. 
Horace Bushnell years ago called attention to a trend 
towards barbarism in rural communities, and we must have 
noticed the frequent outbursts of flagrant crime, bank de- 
falcations, daring robberies, and cold-blooded murders, in 
quiet neighborhoods where nature's loveliness, it would 



CHRIST AND THE COUNTRY CHURCH 113 

seem, ought to have chased away all villainous and vicious 
thoughts. Disreputable districts, and filthy corners, where 
drinking, gaming, and other abominations are covertly in- 
dulged, disgrace town and village as they do the great 
cities of the world. 

The trail of the serpent is as real, though not always as 
manifest, in Eden as in Babylon. No longer can we hon- 
estly believe in Paradisaical innocence as necessarily reign- 
ing where the primeval forest casts its shade, and where 
the hedgerows blossom and the wild flowers bloom. The 
heathenism of free-love theories, the polygamy of Mor- 
mons, the obicism of benighted negroes flourish as luxu- 
riantly in the country as in the city, and perhaps more so. 
In addition to this, it is asserted that in the former as in 
the latter, there is a decline in church attendance and in 
the number of annual applications for membership. The 
people are falling away. Even entire churches in New 
Hampshire, Connecticut and Massachusetts have been 
blotted out and others have been so reduced in strength as 
to be slowly perishing. In many instances the preaching 
has lost the note of authority and is rarely attractive. 
Prayer-meetings are poorly sustained ; money for the work 
is not easy to obtain ; and interest in evangelism and the 
salvation of souls is distinctly on the wane. 

Such is the serious indictment. What can be said in 
reply? Is it true, or only proximately true? Probably, 
as stated by the hostile critics of Christianity, it is some- 
what exaggerated. Nevertheless, it approaches near 
enough to the actual facts for every lover of humanity to 
be earnestly solicitous, if not actually alarmed. 

A correspondent in the Commonwealth (London), a few 
months ago declared that church attendance in England 
had fallen fifty per cent, during the last half century. Dr. 
H. K. Carroll reports that the increase in church member- 



114: THE MODERN CEISIS IN RELIGION 

ship in America last year was only 1.5 per cent, to an in- 
crease of 2.6 per cent, in the population. These figures are 
paralleled in other lands. They are significant. It cannot 
be denied that they apply to the country as well as to 
cities, and may be accepted as indicating some degree of 
retrogression and decay. It must be remembered, how- 
ever, that changes of a very radical kind are occurring in 
rural districts which ought to be taken into account when 
considering the present religious crisis. 

Village churches belong to two classes : — to the villages 
whose industries have declined and many of whose in- 
habitants have consequently moved away; and to those 
that are growing but whose future is not very clear. New 
methods of industry and increased facilities of transporta- 
tion have wrought a revolution in the life and fortunes of 
innumerable towns and hamlets. The small tannery, the 
woolen mill and carding machine, the cooper's shop and 
wagon shop, have gone or are fast going after the home 
looms and spinning wheels. Villages that grew up and 
prospered on the water courses are generally decadent, and 
it is hardly a figure of speech to say that the motive forces, 
steam and electricity, are driving multitudes of young 
people from their homes into the cities. On this point 
Mr. Ernest Hamlin Abbott bears witness when in his ad- 
mirable book 1 he portrays a " Virginia Country Rector " : 
"In this circuit, he (the rector) had seen within twenty 
years a great social revolution. The character of the 
population has absolutely changed. He used to have for 
his congregation people of refinement. . . . Now 
this element of refinement is no longer dominant. He ac- 
counted for this change by referring to the introduction of 
electricity as the cause, which had so displaced the horse 
that the breeding of horses, which once was the source of 
1 " Religious Life in America." 



CHRIST AND THE COUNTRY CHURCH 115 

wealth in the community, had ceased to be profitable. 
With the disappearance of wealth, leisure disappeared also, 
and with leisure went the opportunities for mental cultiva- 
tion." 

This revolution is more widespread than is generally ap- 
preciated. It extends through many portions of New Eng- 
land, and has already wrought its paralyzing effects on 
some districts in the West as well as in the South. In 
England and Germany the same causes are producing 
similar consequences. The decline of agriculture in Great 
Britain and the creation of vast landed estates by dispos- 
sessing the peasantry, necessarily drive the unemployed to 
those active centres where work may be obtained. Un- 
settled conditions are never favorable to religion. The 
break up of the old system and methods of industry, with 
the attendant restlessness and redistribution of population, 
usually disturbs the mind and deranges the order and 
habits of the life. 

Men and women go forth from their old homes hardly 
knowing whither they are going, and certainly not know- 
ing what is to befall them, and they do not find it easy to 
adjust themselves to their strange environments. They 
feel lost in a crowd when they tread the pavements of a 
mighty metropolis. The sense of neighborly obligation 
declines. They absent themselves commonly from church 
for various reasons ; — perhaps because they are not recog- 
nized and made much of, probably because the ways of 
the sanctuary are distasteful to them, and not unlikely be- 
cause they do not feel well enough off to enter heartily into 
religious service. In numberless instances such people are 
lost to the churches in the city, and their migration has 
left a large vacancy in the country churches, a vacancy 
which the incoming of foreigners to settle on the abandoned 
farms, or to inaugurate some novel industries, does not fill, 



116 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

as they too have their own ways and their own beliefs 
which do not accommodate themselves readily to their new 
surroundings. 

These facts soften somewhat the dark picture that is 
often drawn of religious life in country churches. They 
bring into view forces which lie beyond the power of 
Christianity to control, and which have nothing what- 
ever to do with continued or declining confidence in its 
divine origin. Moreover, reports furnished by evangelists 
and home mission secretaries throw additional light on 
the murky gloominess of the outlook. These workers as- 
sure us that the foreign population is becoming more and 
more amenable to Christian influence, that some of the 
neglected sanctuaries are again being filled, and that in 
various localities, particularly in modest townships, there 
are signs of spiritual quickening. 

Nevertheless, let us not deceive ourselves and be too 
sanguine. When all has been said that can be said by 
way of extenuation and explanation, and when every con- 
cession has been made to the liability to exaggerate, the 
situation must still be regarded as unsatisfactory and un- 
promising. 

What can be done ? 

This is the question I approach with some hesitancy. 
True, I am familiar with country parishes and with present- 
day unfavorable conditions. Yet it is no easy thing to suggest 
a remedy. All I can do is to speak frankly and accord- 
ing to my light. This I shall do, and in doing so it will 
be necessary to lay bare certain tendencies and weaknesses 
which have contributed to the evils we deplore. 

At the outset I maintain that reform depends primarily 
on the efficiency of the pulpit. The pastor must lead, he 
must rise to the level of the need if any important change 
is to be accomplished. If he is feeble, fickle, faithless, he 



CHRIST AND THE COUNTRY CHURCH 117 

will inevitably impede the work of rehabilitation and prog- 
ress. Great is his responsibility, and I have no hesitancy 
in saying that his failure to realize it deeply is one of the 
causes of the present apathy in country churches. 

That there are multitudes of clergymen to whom this 
reproach does not apply I nothing doubt. I have person- 
ally known many, and I am sure there must be a larger 
number unknown to me, far away from cities, the peers in 
scholarship, refinement, and ability of those who have 
achieved a metropolitan reputation. Some of the ablest 
preachers in the world are to be found in humble parishes, 
and in parishes where the thick smoke from tall chimneys 
does not obscure the heavens, and where the clamor and 
clatter of tumultuous commerce do not imperil the soul's 
serenity. But while this is to be conceded, it is also un- 
happily true that there are not a few ministers and evangel- 
ists in country churches who are uneducated, who have 
very little idea of the high import of their office, who have 
no moral earnestness, who are content to be carried by 
their congregations, and who have no special concern for 
the immediate advance of Christ's kingdom. 

Frequently they are self-complacent and are blind or in- 
different to what is going on about them. They seem to 
be infected with the notion that Protestant lands are really 
Christian, that the battle has been fought and the enemies 
of the cross driven from the field, and that they are in pos- 
session to enjoy the spoils, such as they are — a $600 salary, 
a parsonage and considerable leisure for reading. It is 
this assumption that is accountable for much of the dreary 
apathy that prevails in many country communions. Is not 
this God's country? Was it not founded by the Puritans ? 
Have we not here religious liberty and an open Bible? 
What more do we need ? And in the confidence that all 
is well these torpid, self-contained shepherds, having in 



118 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

slovenly manner cared for the routine of their office, fail to 
see that the flock is shivering in the unusual frost and is 
gradually being buried in the drifting snow. 

Country parishes suffer, likewise, from the attitude of 
another and a much higher type of incumbent, — the am- 
bitious young divine. He has graduated from college and 
seminary, if not with honor, at least with no discredit, and 
he entertains no poor opinion of his gifts and merits. A 
rural church invites him to its pulpit, and he accepts, with 
the mental reservation that this is only a step to something 
higher. At the first his culture and his enthusiasm put 
new life into the venerable and antiquated parish, and 
could he only free himself from the feeling that he was 
destined for a more conspicuous station and give himself 
unreservedly to his work, something worth while might be 
accomplished. Alas, this is contrary to his plans and 
character. After a while he becomes openly dissatisfied 
with his field, imagines that his congregation is not suffi- 
ciently intelligent for so brilliant a youth, makes disparag- 
ing remarks, complains to friends of the difficulties of his 
position, writes to older clergymen and even to committees 
regarding his own eminent fitness for any commanding 
pulpit that may happen to be vacant. His anxiety for the 
future involves the neglect of the present, and he ceases to 
be careful in his preparations for his public ministrations, 
and naturally his congregations dwindle and his influence 
declines. 

Strange, this gifted creature never seems to realize that 
when he concludes that his people are not worthy his tal- 
ents he is no longer worthy his people. If he is not con- 
tent with them he ought not to accept the stipend they pay. 
His usefulness is at an end in one place when he is con- 
vinced that it can only begin in another. Moreover, he 
must have forgotten that some of the most notable, brilliant 



CHRIST AND THE COUNTRY CHURCH 119 

and influential careers in the gospel ministry have been 
accomplished in rural parishes. Men of vigorous intellect 
and of spiritual insight and discernment, like Samuel 
Rutherford, have been powers for good in their day, though 
they labored away from the centres of wealth and com- 
merce. He ought also surely to know that there is no ob- 
scurity so common and so painful as that which awaits the 
average preacher in a city. Unless he is exceptionally en- 
dowed his removal to a metropolis like London, Berlin or 
Chicago will simply be a plunge into final oblivion. Of 
the thousands of clergymen in city pulpits how few are 
really known beyond their immediate supporters. This 
ambitious youth, who is yearning for a wider field of use- 
fulness, and who imagines that he is wronged because he 
is not chosen to succeed a Henry Ward Beecher, would 
probably be among those who are hopelessly lost in the 
crowd. 

Would it not be better for him and nobler too, were he 
to accept his humble field as a charge from God, to which 
he will give his best, and never cease his toil until he has 
caused the wilderness to rejoice and to blossom as the rose ? 
Were he to engage in his work as though it were the only 
opportunity he might ever have to make " full proof of his 
ministry," he could hardly fail to bring much to pass. 
Not until pastors feel, as many of them do, that there is no 
field worthier intelligent and consecrated effort than their 
own, and not until schools and councils realize that rural 
parishes cannot be built up by half-educated, half-hearted, 
and wholly incompetent men, will any marked improve- 
ment take place in the prospects of country churches. 

Religion has suffered much from unwise and careless 
management and from the indisposition of congregations to 
give serious attention to its interests. Too much is taken 
for granted. It is easier to pray than to work, and more 



120 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

convenient to throw the responsibility on the Almighty 
than to take it ourselves. I am one who believes that were 
Christian men and women willing to give time, thought 
and treasure to the cause of Christ there would cease to be 
a religious crisis ; and no schemes, no sensational remedies, 
no quackeries, however startling, will ever effect what God 
ordained should be accomplished by the direct efforts of 
His people. When it can truly be said, however, as the 
Rev. Dr. Strong has said, that in the United States only 
fifty-six per cent, of her resident membership attend divine 
service on a pleasant Sunday, only twenty-two per cent, 
frequent the prayer-meeting, and that only one-sixteenth 
part of one per cent, of their vast wealth is devoted to 
missions, home and foreign, it becomes evident that too 
many of our Lord's soldiers are in the hospital or on fur- 
lough for the church to regain her position or undertake an 
aggressive movement. 

It should never be forgotten that Christianity has to be 
newly created with each age. That is, the trials and 
thinking of the period will modify its form and method. 
We cannot feel towards religion as our fathers did unless 
we experience our fathers' vicissitudes and victories. The 
trouble is we do not recognize the changed point of view, 
the altered conditions and the new problems. This, I ap- 
prehend, is particularly true of country parishes, and con- 
sequently no special thought is given to the peculiar needs 
of the hour, and a disposition is manifest to get along with 
the old lumbering stage-coach methods, while the rest of 
the world is being propelled and illuminated by electricity. 

For instance, churches in villages and small towns ought 
to federate and plan together for the advancement of re- 
ligion. In some communities there are too many denomi- 
nations striving for supremacy. The world has little in- 
terest in these rivalries, and speaks of them in no very 



CHKIST AND THE COUNTKY CHUKCH 121 

complimentary terms. Several years ago this scandal was 
vividly portrayed by an able writer in articles entitled, "A 
New England Village," and "Fall River," and has often 
been alluded to in the press. 

Picture a town with a population of ten or twelve hun- 
dred, where there are no millionaries and where earnings 
are meagre, with a Catholic, Episcopalian, Presbyterian or 
Congregational, Methodist and Baptist church to maintain, 
and possibly a few additional sects thrown in — then re- 
flect how genuine religion and morality will be apt to fare 
in all the circumstances. It will certainly be impossible to 
fill all these pulpits with adequately equipped men, and 
having so many preachers to sustain — or starve — there will 
be little left to bestow on outside objects. It has been 
demonstrated that when a congregation has to spend all 
the money it can gather on itself, and thus lives for itself 
alone and not for others, it speedily weakens and decays. 
While, as described by the newspapers, it seems odd and 
worldly, the report of an organized preachers' Trust in 
Lincoln, Neb., may only be a common sense endeavor to 
so combine as to conserve the spiritual well-being of the 
community. Through it the evil of superfluous churches 
may be abated, and those that survive be better able to 
support stronger men in the pulpit and yet have a surplus 
for philanthropic and missionary work. 

Nor should it be overlooked that where so many congre- 
gations are struggling for existence they are in danger of 
misrepresenting themselves and the real object of their 
being. They create the impression, unintentionally, that 
their perpetuity is the principal thing, and that the spiritual 
uplift of society is of secondary moment. At this very 
hour, and within the ranks of a great denomination a con- 
troversy is raging, hardly heard of in cities, but disturbing 
country churches and producing alienations, as to whether 



122 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

any but Baptist ministers are real ministers, and whether 
intercommunion between members of the same denomina- 
tion is permissible. While this debate is impairing the 
religious spirit of the Southland the work of conversion, 
reform and morality falls into neglect. After it has run its 
course the contestants will realize, what outside parties 
perceive already, that they are contributing to the decay 
of genuine religion. 

Of what real value are these questions after all ? Were 
they decided in favor of either side would the victors be 
better qualified to win souls to Christ, and would the souls 
after looking over the battle-field think it worth while to 
be won ? It is my deliberate opinion that these discus- 
sions, which do not involve the moral life of the world, 
are rendering Christianity ridiculous and an impossibility 
to serious men. Is there not common sense enough left 
for such trifling to be renounced and for wiser measures to 
be approved ? 

There are other steps necessary to be taken. Some- 
thing ought to be done in the way of rendering public 
worship more attractive. I have more than once been 
painfully impressed by the lack of dignity and of sustained 
interest in the services of praise, prayer and preaching as 
conducted in some rural churches. The people gather 
slowly and apparently reluctantly, evincing no remarkable 
degree of reverence — I am speaking of America. Often- 
times no preparation has been made in advance, and the 
minister bustles in and holds a whispered conversation 
with the leader of the singing, interspersed with the rus- 
tling of hymn-book leaves, followed by further whispering 
in the village choir, if there is a choir. The Scriptures 
are frequently read in a slovenly manner, and the hearer 
may be grateful if he is favored with anything more than 
a stale exhortation, or is not coolly informed that the 



CHRIST AND THE COUNTRY CHURCH 123 

speaker has been too busy to give previous thought to his 
sermon. 

This disrespect for sacred things, this amazing hugger- 
mugger, this soullessness when the people are approaching 
the Almighty in the supreme moment of spiritual com- 
munion, is inexcusable, and where it is tolerated no 
wonder that self-respecting persons, who have some sense 
of reverence, should prefer to be absent. Nor need the 
minister be surprised who intimates that he has given no 
thought to his sermon if an intelligent community gives no 
thought to what he calls his sermon either. 

Now, there is no necessity in the humblest village for 
this bald, dreary, slatternly kind of worship. Everywhere 
are to be found people of devout mood and refined taste 
who could easily correct these imperfections, as they have 
already done in quite a number of rural parishes, if the 
preacher and deacons would only give them a chance. 
And this reform should be supplemented by changes in 
the means commonly relied on in country churches for the 
quickening and intensifying of religious life. 

Revivals, protracted meeting, and similar exceptional 
efforts have not been without value in the past, and there 
yet may be a place for them under certain conditions in 
the future. Any movement that is the result of a direct 
heavenly impulse cannot fail to advantage society; but 
movements that spring from human sagaciousness and are 
devised to offset the effect of long continued apathy and 
neglect are likely to prove only a qualified blessing at the 
best. When they are resorted to as substitutes for the 
every-day activities of religious life they are wrong in prin- 
ciple and are even dangerous in operation. Churches 
that have been idle and listless have been known at stated 
intervals to invoke the aid of some noted revivalist ex- 
torter and to abandon themselves to a species of pious 



124 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

delirium for several weeks, from which they naturally sank 
back exhausted and continued in a semi-comatose state 
until the next violent awakening. 

Such extreme alternations have wrought disastrously on 
the spirituality and efficiency of congregations, and have 
created in many minds a false ideal of religion. The im- 
pression has been made that religion is a spasmodic, fitful, 
convulsive emotion, and that it is not essentially a holy 
and gracious fellowship with God and His Son and a con- 
tinued and unwavering solicitude for the salvation of the 
human family. The time has come for us all to return to 
the true conception. Let the churches everywhere cease 
praying for a "coming revival " and devote themselves to 
the daily care of souls, to the ceaseless inculcation of 
truth and righteousness and to the constant rebuke of social 
wrongs and vices, and they will speedily be conscious of a 
present revival, which will increase in wholesome intensity 
in proportion as their faithfulness endures. 

I have feared at times that the attitude of some country 
churches towards the recreations and amusements of the 
young has been, so unreasonable that they have injured 
those whom they really desired to benefit. All the preach- 
ing in the world, and all the ecclesiastical censures imagin- 
able will never eradicate the desire for diversion. This 
desire may need guidance, but it cannot be suppressed. 
Ministers who labor in cities are familiar with the 
youthful church member from the country, who has been 
kept very strictly from every form of entertainment, and 
who on attaining his freedom plunges into vicious excesses. 
I plead for more common sense latitude. It ought to suf- 
fice if pastors and deacons can develop in the mind of the 
community a righteous detestation of strong drink, gambling, 
vaudeville shows and other abominations. If they do this 
they can afford to remove the ban from harmless home 



CHRIST AND THE COUNTRY CHURCH 125 

dances, from dramatic readings and even from local 
amateur theatrical representations, while they encourage 
athletic sports and the joy that springs from hunting, fish- 
ing, baseball, golf and tennis. Let them in this way 
come into closer and more human sympathy with the daily 
life of the parish, and their influence for good will be in- 
creased. They will soon discover that the decline of 
artificial asceticism has led to a corresponding decline in 
hypocrisy, and that the growth of sanity on this subject 
has deepened serious thoughtfulness on another and 
higher. 

There is a final cause of deterioration that calls for 
prompt and adequate treatment. It is now common for 
the city to empty itself frequently into the country. The 
very rich and people of moderate means seek in the 
mountains or by the sea surcease from the weariness of 
their daily cares. This hegira is not confined to the sum- 
mer months, but now that travel is so rapid and so com- 
fortable, it is, to some extent, of weekly occurrence. 
Trains crowded and overcrowded leave London, Glasgow, 
Boston, St. Louis, New York and almost every other city, 
on Saturday noon and afternoon for quiet resting-places in 
the rural districts. These excursionists and week-end 
guests at private houses are no advantage to the religious 
life of the little communities they visit. They do not, at 
least as a rule, attend church, and by their driving, riding, 
fishing, and occasionally by their less innocent diversions, 
set an example which undermines the confidence of the 
neighborhood in Christianity. A writer in the Manchester 
Guardian (1901) gives a very striking account of week- 
end parties in England : 

"Smart people in London generally go away from Sat- 
urday till Monday, and in the country houses where they 
spend their * week-ends,' Sunday is completely secularized. 



126 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

The keener spirits play bridge in the garden, and in the 
evening billiards and cards have effectually displaced those 
Ivory Letters which were the extreme limit of the gaiety 
permitted by our fathers. For servants, on the other 
hand, Sunday is a day of unending labor. Old-fashioned 
people used to have cold dinner on Sunday, in order to di- 
minish the pressure on the kitchen ; or if nature revolted 
against the regimen, the hot meal was cut down to its 
smallest dimensions. To-day, whatever of Sunday is not 
occupied with exercise is given to meals. The early cup 
of tea, not without accompaniments, is followed by 
a breakfast, which in quantity and quality, resembles a 
dinner, and is served any time from ten to twelve. A 
good many people breakfast in their own rooms, and ' do 
themselves/ as the phrase is, uncommonly well there. 
Luncheon has long been a dinner, excepting only soup. 
The menu is printed in white and gold, and coffee and 
liquors are prolonged till within measurable distance of 
tea. Tea is tea and a great deal besides — cakes, sand- 
wiches, potted meat, poached eggs, — and I have seen, in 
its season, a bleeding woodcock. A little jaded by these 
gastronomical exertions, and only partially recruited by its 
curfew game of tennis, Society puts off its dinner till nine, 
and then sits down with an appetite which has gained 
keenness by delay. Drinks of all descriptions circulate in 
the smoking-room and the billiard-room, and Monday 
morning is well advanced before the last servant gets to 
bed. Besides all this demand on the kitchen staff, the 
butler and the footman, it is to be borne in mind that the 
stables are at work all day, and that ladies' maids and 
valets live in a whirl of packing and unpacking, dressing 
and undressing, for a self-respecting woman will adapt her 
costumes to the day's successive pursuits, and a smart boy 
changes his clothes as often as a pretty girl." 



CHRIST AND THE COUNTRY CHURCH 127 

Except in rare instances, we in America have not ad- 
vanced as far as this. But we are rapidly approximating 
to this utterly inane, silly and heartless way of profaning 
the Sabbath and of robbing domestics of their rightful day 
of rest. With all this going on in the leading houses, and 
with the arrival and departing of trains, it is not strange 
that congregations are depleted, and that the rural popula- 
tion becomes as indifferent to religion as their visitors. 

While it may be allowed that during the summer vaca- 
tion many Christian people seek to better the towns and 
villages where they dwell, it is still doubtful — to me, not 
doubtful at all — whether their consistent conduct is suf- 
ficient to counteract the careless ways of others and the 
majority. I have known ministers to express their dread 
of the annual invasion. They have repeatedly stated that 
these thoughtless visitors suggest wrong ideas of life, and 
by their example alienate many from the house of God. 
It is almost impossible to offset their pernicious influence 
before the summer returns, bringing with it the crowd of 
pleasure-seekers, and the repetition of their damaging 
words and deeds. Each year, it is said, shows on the 
part of the visitors increasing disregard of religious duties, 
and increasing disregard of the quiet and ruling ideals of 
the neighborhood. 

These are evils that can only be corrected by a vigorous 
public spirit in the rural districts. They must act for 
themselves. The guardians of the village or town are re- 
sponsible for the preservation of its good order and sacred 
traditions. They have no right, even for the sake of gain, 
to tolerate abuses which impair the moral and spiritual 
tone of the community. Let them have more nerve and 
courage, that is, if they believe Christianity to be divine 
and its authority worth maintaining. Nor should they 
hesitate to appeal, as I do now, to those who make their 



128 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

homes among them for the summer to cooperate with them. 
This is not much to ask of those who go to sit by the 
"still waters," and refresh themselves in the "green pas- 
tures " for a season. They can, if they will, not only re- 
ceive good from their sojourn where nature woos them to 
repose, but they can impart good. By their devotion to 
the cross, by their intelligent zeal on behalf of human re- 
generation, and by their manly consecration to everything 
"pure and of good report" they can help the now strug- 
gling church in the country, and incline the people to pray 
that the Master remain and teach in their towns and 
villages. 

The words of Dr. Phelps are to be seriously pondered : 
" Civilization gives no sign of perpetuity in history till it 
is transplanted into Christianity. Independently, like all 
other social forces of human origin, it rots and dies. Only 
when it is rooted in Christian ideas does it give promise of 
a future. The most corrupt nations have been the most 
accomplished in civilized graces." This statement ac- 
cepted as true sweeps away every peddling, idle excuse for 
negligence in arresting the declining influence of our faith 
throughout the world. 

Does the decay of Christianity involve the continuance 
of civilization ? If it does, then the present hour is indeed 
one of supreme significance. Then the dying down of 
altar-fires in the city or the country, even the desertion of 
the humblest meeting-house on lonely prairie or in distant 
valley, assumes in some degree the nature of a public calam- 
ity. To stand calmly by and see unmoved the devastation 
wrought; — particularly for Christian men to place their 
profits and their pleasures above their religious duty, know- 
ing, as they must know, that they can avert the catastrophe 
and that by no other means can it be averted, — and yet 
fail to take their stand decisively for God and humanity, is 



CHRIST AND THE COUNTRY CHURCH 129 

for them to entail on themselves and the world "the misery 
of an atrocious criminality." 

" Church of the Crucified, art thou reclining 

Where thy Lord had not a place for His head ? 
Hast thou soft comforts thy temples entwining 

Where His brows throbbed 'neath a chaplet blood-red ? 
Up from the dust, though it gleam golden round thee 

Tis but the Judas-bribe proffered anew ; 
Clasp the pierced hand that from bondage unbound thee, 

Let the pierced heart teach thee love that is true. 

" Church of the Crucified, earth needs thy passion, 

Love agonizing the wayward to win; 
Pure self-oblation in Christliest fashion 

Soul-sweat and travail to save men from sin : 
Church of the Risen One, love that withholdeth 

Naught that it has God would give to thee now : 
Rise in the might that thy weakness unfoldeth, 

Bid the whole earth to the Crucified bow ! " 



VI 
THE CHURCH AND THE WORKSHOP 

" Is not this the carpenter's son ? " — Matthew ij : 33. 

JESUS united religion and toil in His own person. 
His earlier years were spent in His father's workshop; 
and as He stands by the bench of the carpenter a sym- 
bol is created of the union that should ever exist between 
the workshop and the church. Nowhere is a similar fel- 
lowship suggested between the church and the college, or 
the office, or the bench, or the army or navy. This alli- 
ance with industry is unique and stands out by itself: It 
becomes apparent to us in our Lord's social condition, and 
probably arrests attention that we may learn, while all vo- 
cations are bettered by contact with the spiritual, that 
manual labor needs in a special sense its inspiration and its 
comfort. Possibly, likewise, it is designed to teach that 
while toil is exceptionally dependent on the faith, the faith 
in its turn is preeminently dependent on toil. What God 
has joined together let no man put asunder. 

Christianity had its origin among the humbler members 
of society. The common people, we are told, heard Christ 
gladly. In their hearts His word took root. Over their 
lives it shed its blessing. These earliest friends, these first 
disciples — the first-fruits of the harvest, so to speak, — may 
be accepted as a disclosure of the peculiar character of the 
religion our Master announced : 

"The spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the 
Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the 

130 



THE CHUKCH AND THE WORKSHOP 131 

meek; He hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to 
proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the 
prison to them that are bound, to proclaim the acceptable 
year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God." 
This evidently is the religion of the poor. Although it 
comes to all classes and knows no respect of persons, still 
its supreme genius is celebrated in the inspired hymn : 

" He hath put down princes from their thrones, 
And hath exalted them of low degree, 
The hungry He hath filled with good things ; 
And the rich He hath sent empty away." 

Hence it is that Christianity as unfolded by its Founder 
calls for no splendid temples in which to worship ; no ex- 
pensive vestments for the clergy ; no precious metals, no 
costly chrism, no treasures of gold or silver for icons, 
censers or for mass. No ; an upper room consecrated by 
faith and prayer, is all the audience chamber the soul 
needs ; the garments of toil are the only habiliments de- 
manded in the service of praise ; and a loaf of bread, a cup 
of common wine and a stream of crystal water furnish the 
modest materials out of which sacred ordinances and ob- 
servances are fashioned. Unquestionably this is the re- 
ligion of the lowly ; for not only are its benefits such as 
touch with peculiar grace the poor man's lot, but its privi- 
leges and sacraments are placed within the reach of the 
slimmest purse to enjoy. 

Let us not, however, fall into the easy error of identify- 
ing those who at the first so gladly accepted the gospel, 
with the illiterates and degenerates that make possibly the 
slums of modern cities. There was no lower East Side in 
Jerusalem as in New York, neither was there any East End 
as in London. It is conceded that certain outcast women 
were drawn to the Master and were rescued from a life of 



132 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

shame, and that several men engaged in disreputable occu- 
pations were also saved. But, as a rule, the disciples He 
gathered about Him were not representatives of an en- 
feebled and degraded population. They were in the main 
of the sturdy, independent artisan class, self-respecting 
and entitled to the respect of their contemporaries. Their 
counterpart in this age is found among vigorous and up- 
right mechanics, agriculturalists, fishermen, and among 
those temperate, self-reliant, thoughtful multitudes who 
count it no shame to earn their daily bread with their 
hands and in the sweat of their brow. 

These were not the only type of men Jesus sent out as 
the evangelists of grace and peace. There were others, 
and laborers too, for this honorable name cannot be mo- 
nopolized exclusively by those who descend into the mine, 
who pound and hammer at the forge, who guide the 
plough through the heavy furrow or who sheet the shiver- 
ing canvas home on a troubled sea. They too belong to 
the army of workers who think, write, print, and stimulate 
the world's activities by their exalted ideals. I am not, 
however, considering this worthy order when I declare, and 
repeat what I have already declared, that Christianity was 
at the beginning fostered by poor, industrious folk, such as 
fishermen and reapers, who welcomed it as particularly 
their own, and hastened to transmit its spiritual treasures 
to those who were as destitute of this world's dignities and 
possessions as they were themselves. 

To me their conspicuous prominence at the beginning is 
a sure and expressive sign that their continual cooperation 
is a source of strength to the church, the value of which 
cannot be over-estimated, and the withdrawal of which 
cannot be contemplated without serious concern. And 
yet if we accept the concensus of opinion on the subject, 
we now confront this very calamity, not as a deplorable 



THE CHURCH AND THE WORKSHOP 133 

contingency but as a tragical reality. The breach has al- 
ready taken place. Church and workshop are alienated 
from each other. Perhaps the church has forgotten that 
her founder was a carpenter ; and likely the workshop has 
not remembered that the carpenter was divine and came to 
save the world from sin as well as from social inequal- 
ities. 

It has been stated that not more than three per cent, of 
the working men of the larger cities in the United States 
are regular attendants on religious services. In Great 
Britain the average is a trifle higher ; but on both sides of 
the Atlantic the falling away of the industrious proletariat 
is too noticeable for doubt. A recent writer has gone so 
far as to say that to the overwhelming mass of the popula- 
tion given to handicraft the churches do not exist at all. 
They live their lives without thought of them, with no in- 
terest in their plans and aims, and do not care whether 
they abide or pass away. 

Possibly there are some aspects of this drift that modify 
its intensity and warrant the hope that it may be arrested. 
My personal investigations satisfy me that many of the 
working class deplore the indifference to religion so general 
among their comrades, and are doing what they can by 
their example to bring about a change. It is well known 
among ministers that these artisans are worthily following 
the Saviour, are usually most reliable members of a Chris- 
tian communion, and are at present the real bond of union 
between the forsaken sanctuary and the wandering pro- 
letariat. But whatever streaks of light there may be pene- 
trating the heavy clouds, the heavens are black enough 
with storm and peril for us to be profoundly anxious. 
The situation at the best is thoroughly unsatisfactory and 
disturbing. It is at this point the religious crisis assumes 
its most ominous form. The revolt of a few scholars, the 



134 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

antagonism of a company of millionaires, the ridicule of the 
entire cult of literary Bohemianism, and the simpering 
criticisms of the soulless smart set, while to be regretted, 
do not weigh in comparison with the damage to Christian 
prestige and power wrought by the lapsing of the common- 
alty of toilers. No conceivable loss is comparable to this. 
The falling away of her natural and original friends from 
Christianity, and the impression, whether justified or not, 
that they have ceased to have much in common, may well 
stimulate serious reflection on both sides of the chasm, and 
warrants the endeavor I would make in this discourse to 
reconcile 

The Church and the Workshop. 

Without being in the least censorious, I am persuaded 
that the church herself has not exerted herself as she 
should have done to prevent or to heal this regrettable 
alienation. She does not adequately feel its portentous 
significance. It is not denied that in her pulpits occasion- 
ally, and in her conventions, she has iterated and reiterated 
her concern for the masses, and has inquired in a helpless 
kind of way how and by what means they might be 
reached. But these discussions, and I have read scores 
of them, rarely have disclosed any acute and painful sense 
of the far-reaching consequences of the defection. Usually 
a few statistics, several declamatory and exclamatory sen- 
tences, rounded up with various platitudes, carefully stated 
so as not to give offense to capitalistic magnates, with an 
expressed belief that the time has come for action, and 
that some one ought to do something — who or what left in- 
definite — and the debate adjourns for another year. 

Roman Catholic authorities have a more discerning and 
a keener appreciation of the situation than Protestants 
have. They make a good impression wherever they go by 



THE CHUECH AND THE WORKSHOP 135 

their professed devotion to the poor. They multiply char- 
ities which they have skill enough to influence the outside 
community to support ; they rear magnificent churches big 
enough and grand enough to accommodate and please 
multitudes, and they are not slow to remind the world that 
men of the humblest origin may aspire to the triple crown. 
The hierarchy poses as democratic in its sympathies, and, 
ignoring the protests of Pio Nono and other pontiffs against 
liberty of conscience and freedom of the press, proclaims 
itself the friend of the people and the champion of their 
rights. Strange to say, however, with all of its avowed 
interest in the lower and humbler classes of society, if we 
may judge from the character of these classes in Catholic 
lands, and from what we see in immigrants from Southern 
Italy and Southern Germany, it can hardly be seriously 
claimed that the Roman church has " reached " the masses 
in any such sense as to make the " reaching " of very great 
value to them or to the community at large. 

Nevertheless, though she may not improve the condition 
of the ignorant and the lowly she has sagacity enough to 
realize that her own interests are involved in their loyal 
support. Drive from her altars the working-women of 
Paris, Rome, Vienna, and from her courts the common 
day laborer and his indigent family, and she would be de- 
prived of much of her social and political power. Con- 
sequently, she does her best to hold on to these people, 
and if they are disposed in various localities to abandon 
her it is not because she has become indifferent to the 
value of their presence in her solemnities. 

At this point Protestants are relatively weak. They 
may be as anxious for the welfare of the masses as their 
Romanist friends, and they may give more money for the 
alleviation of distress and misfortune, but taken as a body 
they are not as alive to the importance of winning them to 



136 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

their faith. They are not antagonistic to the lowly toiler. 
Their hands are open to assist him in the time of sore 
trial. They, likewise, mildly deplore his absence from 
religious services and are willing to build missions for his 
accommodation. Nevertheless, the artisan world feels that 
there is a lack of heart in these professions of solicitude. 
While the philanthropic spirit may be genuine, as it 
does not necessitate personal association with its beneficia- 
ries, it is commonly believed that the expression of religious 
interest does not ring true as it usually seeks to fulfill it- 
self by dividing what God has united. The working 
classes will not have the missions. They object to the 
implied discrimination, and they resent the proposal to 
found a " Workingman's Church," as they would a church 
for stockbrokers or millionaires. " The rich and the poor 
ought to meet together, for God is the maker of them all," 
is the divine rule, and they plead for its enforcement. 
What society needs, they insist, is one place and one re- 
curring occasion where, without distinction of rank or for- 
tune, people can gather together and side by side realize 
their obligations to each other and recognize their common 
humanity. 

The average city church building makes no provision for 
such promiscuous assemblies. It is small, fitted up like a 
drawing-room, and is divided up into pews in which the 
lessor feels he has exclusive and excluding property rights. 
Visitors hesitate to intrude, and sometimes they may well 
pause before they take the liberty of entering into the sa- 
cred retreat. However benignant the worshippers may be 
and however amiable, no one would imagine that these 
arrangements contemplated accommodating the toiling 
classes. But even if this is an erroneous inference, and if 
the builders planned to welcome all without distinction, 
yet the impression made on the poor is unfortunate. They 



THE CHURCH AND THE WORKSHOP 137 

infer from what they see that they are not expected, and 
the church if she actually desires their presence has failed 
sadly in making clear her good intentions. Let us con- 
cede that she has only blundered ; but unhappily, as we 
shall see farther on, other blunders are committed, which 
misrepresent her position in the world, and justify the be- 
lief, already expressed, that Protestants are not so con- 
cerned as they should be for the cooperation and comrade- 
ship of the proletariat in their great work. 

It is not easy for the average Christian to appreciate the 
attitude of the workshop to the church. Nor would I 
venture to expound it were it not that I have conversed, 
both in Europe and America, with the representatives of 
labor, and have visited their homes and familiarized myself 
with their sentiments. We are assured by some writers 
that they are not animated by hostility, but are only indif- 
ferent to religion. It is stated that while among them are 
positive unbelievers, as there are among the leisure and 
educated classes, they are not as a rule abandoned to infi- 
delity. Within limits I can concur in this view. I have 
met with many genuine Christians in the ranks of labor, 
and a yet larger number who theoretically hold to the fun- 
damental conceptions of orthodoxy. But I am constrained 
to add, that the dominant tone of those with whom I have 
talked has been that of incredulity and aversion. 

All in my intercourse have avowed their admiration of 
Jesus, but these avowals have usually been accompanied 
by strenuous declarations that if the churches were like 
Him, if they would drive the money changers out and 
give the poor a chance, there would no longer be opposi- 
tion to them. Their language has occasionally been bit- 
ter, approaching to invective. Deep down in the common 
heart of the toiler there is hostility, not only to the church 
but to religion. He holds them in some way responsible 



138 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

for the evils of his lot, and is apt to be intolerant when 
speaking of them. 

But he does not speak of them frequently, neither does 
he think of them to any extent. His preoccupation and 
the attention he has to give to the struggle for existence 
have quite removed him from the whole world of religion. 
He has no time for it and he has outgrown its modes of 
thought and its chief ideas. It does not appeal to him, 
fails to arouse him, and is as detached from him as the 
polar regions are distant from the torrid zone. The sub- 
ject does not interest him. Its phraseology is obscure, and 
its seemingly contradictory doctrines a muddle with which 
he does not care to bother himself. If we suppose that he 
is specially moved by thoughts of eternity we are mistaken. 
The imperative demands of this life drive away thoughts 
of the other ; and if any one shall call his attention to the 
issues involved in the question of a hereafter, he need not 
be surprised if the reply comes : "Hell 1 Why should I 
think of a possible hell there when I am struggling with 
an actual hell here ? I did not make myself, and if the 
chief artisan of the universe wishes to cast his own handi- 
work into the rubbish heap — that's his affair, not mine. 

If the inquirer can prevail on people of this class to be 
communicative he will soon learn that this antagonism, 
passive or active, proceeds from certain impressions, 
prejudices and prepossessions, which must be honestly 
dealt with if the breach between workshop and church is 
to be healed. 

There is, for instance, a common notion that the church 
has been created for the benefit of the rich, that it is 
dependent on the rich, and that it is attended by a goodly 
number of clerks and middle men who are striving to 
curry favor with the rich, and that its only object in seek- 
ing the poor is to obtain influence over them and preach 



THE CHUECH AND THE WOKKSHOP 139 

them into submission to their hard lot. Stated in various 
ways this bugbear accounts for much of the sullen dislike 
of the institutes and obligations of religion. And yet it 
rests on misinformation and a totally unwarranted miscon- 
ception. Statistics abundantly prove that church members 
are not generally wealthy. They are persons of frugal 
habits and of moderate means. Occasionally some multi- 
millionaire may make himself conspicuously disagreeable 
and dictatorial ; but such cases are rare. In my experience 
I have never once been annoyed by this type of plutocratic 
piety, and I have suffered more from the overbearing ways 
of ignorant, fantastic egoism than I have from the lordly 
arrogance of the rich. It ought also to be said that there 
is much more equality in churches than many lookers-on 
suppose ; and as to the alleged endeavors of small traders 
to gain the favor of the wealthy by undue concessions, I 
have this to say, that in the discussion of grave ecclesiastical 
issues I have known more persons of limited income to 
gain their way against the affluent than I have known the 
affluent to prevail against the poor. They have not abated 
their independence one jot ; and they have not hesitated 
to withstand their more prosperous brother to his face. 

Moreover, it should be remembered that the majority of 
the wealthy members joined the church when they were 
poor, and therefore must be exonerated from the imputa- 
tion of planning a fellowship for their own glory and for 
the sake of keeping their less fortunate associates in sub- 
mission. There is in fact no greater absurdity than this 
fiction of a conspiracy. Plottings against mechanics and 
other wage-earners are as inconceivable as the scheming of 
sheet lightning to eclipse the sun. These suspicions are 
the most ridiculous of hallucinations. The church may 
not have manifested as much interest as she ought ; she 
may not have felt as deeply as she should ; and she may 



140 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

have bungled, bungled inexcusably in her methods, but I 
am sure that she has never thought harm or deliberately- 
planned harm against the children of toil. Her sins are 
rather of omission than of commission. 

In a line with this ungenerous estimate of the church are 
other current sentiments which are either utterly false and 
misleading, or are base exaggerations. 

Mr. Ernest Hamlin Abbott r reports a reply made to him 
by a former president of the Baltimore Federation of 
Labor: "Religion is in a bad way in Baltimore. I say 
frankly the churches do not welcome the working men, and 
the working men do not care for the churches. The 
churches are made up mostly of employers, and they are 
trying to get all they can out of their men, and don't care 
for them as men at all." Another writer 2 quotes an 
artisan as saying : " We condemn the church because it is 
in with the ' push ' and has a < pull ' with it." And even 
Hall Caine 8 has spoken somewhat recklessly to the same 
purport. He declares that the churches have always been 
opposed to efforts put forth for the political interests of the 
people. " Show me a single victory for humanity that has 
not been won by the people and for the people and often 
in the face of the churches." 

These are grave allegations and in the present crisis 
ought not to be advanced lightly and in such unequivocal 
terms. If these accusations only meant that the church 
has been at fault occasionally, and has arrayed herself for 
a time against progress we would enter no protest. Or if 
they were designed to point out the practical failure of the 
Greek and Roman communions to elevate the humbler 
orders socially, and to sympathize with their aspirations 

1 " Religious Life in America." 

2 "The Gospel and Social Questions." 

3 The British Weekly, December 12, 1901. 



THE CHUECH AND THE WORKSHOP 141 

for political freedom we would have no reason to dissent. 
Even if the note of condemnation is directed against some 
and many Protestant and Catholic clergymen for not 
taking sides with labor when seeking better and more 
humane conditions, as in the appeal of the bakers of New 
York for fewer hours of work and cleaner sanitary arrange- 
ments, or in the case of the motormen asking protection 
from unnecessary exposure in the winter, we would not, 
for we could not reasonably, demur. But these represen- 
tations go farther and signify much more, and much that 
is untenable. 

They overlook the fact that the entire humanistic move- 
ment from the beginning has been inspired by the preach- 
ing of the church. She it was who forced on the Roman 
Empire Christ's idea of the sanctity of human nature which 
underlies the reforms of the centuries — social and political. 
When it is claimed that the people have won their own 
victories, the question may be raised, what people ? Who 
were the people who fought the battle of constitutional free- 
dom in England ? They were the Christian people ; and 
had the same people been eliminated from the American 
war of Independence and from the struggle against the 
slave power, history would not read as it does to-day. If, 
then, a few bishops in the House of Lords are far astray on 
the wisdom of liquor legislation, it ought not to be for- 
gotten that the mass of Christian people — not the people — 
are the real and strong advocates of temperance reform. 
They are the ones, also, who are back of the movements 
that are now making for social regeneration ; and even Mr. 
Caine ought to have been generous enough to acknowledge 
that but for them, William and Mary would never have 
ascended Britain's throne, and the liberties of England 
would never have attained the security they enjoy at present. 

While we cannot deny that the welcome to working men 



142 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

in some churches has left very much to be desired, we are 
astounded at the statements so confidently made that their 
membership consists mainly of employers, and that there 
is some kind of "pull " and "push" by which they are 
benefited. The fact is that the majority of church mem- 
bers are not employers of labor, and if they are it is mostly 
in a small way; and the talk of a "push" or "pull," 
whatever of villainous conspiracy these terms may denote, 
is downright nonsense. Indeed, the wealthier members 
are doing more to-day for education than they are for re- 
ligion. Religion is mainly sustained by the free offerings 
of the many. Why not accuse colleges and schools of 
being in the "pull," and refuse to allow youth to receive 
their benefits as to discriminate against the church ? For 
one dollar of trust money given directly to religion I pre- 
sume hundreds are given to seats of learning. Has not, 
therefore, prejudice and hostility to Christianity more to 
do with these wild statements than real conviction grow- 
ing out of proof? 

One writer with amiable inconsistency blames the church 
for not being as cordial as the saloon. But why does the 
bartender extend the " glad hand " and don the smile that 
does come off when the customer has spent his last penny ? 
Is he moved by friendship and by the sincere desire to 
benefit a fellow-being ? Or is he in hospitable and genial 
mood for revenue only? Rest assured that the patron of 
a rum shop only gets what he pays for, and when he can 
pay for no more, the "icy stare " and the repellent frown 
and the open door — leading into the street — are promptly 
his. God forbid that the church should copy the cordial- 
ity of the public house ; for then she would have reached 
the lowest stage of mercenary hypocrisy — welcoming those 
who come to her only for what she might hope to get out 
of them. 



THE CHUECH AND THE WORKSHOP 143 

We could wish that preachers would speak out 
when the legitimate demands of labor call for advocacy, 
and when its rights and its freedom are threatened. I 
know that they have done this to a very great extent. 
Not as much, I admit, as they ought to have done, but far 
more than their critics realize. The fault, however, is not 
wholly theirs. A good part of it rests with the very people 
they have sincerely desired to assist. Those ministers who 
stand by the toiler, do not find the toiler standing by them. 
They do their best, while the men who are most concerned 
are conspicuous by their absence. If there should be a 
disposition on the part of the members to object to their 
preaching on these themes, they look in vain for sympathy 
and moral support from those who ought to uphold them. 

Moreover, some clergymen and priests are deterred by 
the unreasonable position taken by those who expect and 
desire pulpit cooperation. When they have pleaded for 
arbitration and have aided in adjusting difficulties, if they 
do not give their approval to exorbitant demands and to a 
succession of unwise strikes, and if they venture to insist 
that the non-unionist has his rights, they are likely to be 
denounced as the partisans of capital and the enemies of 
labor. Not a few ministers prefer not to be misrepresented 
by hot-headed walking delegates, and rather than to give 
their countenance to what is unfair and brutal, they pre- 
serve a dignified, though not altogether justifiable, silence. 
They do not see why, at the dictation of men who never 
go to church, and who do not understand the church, 
they should condemn combinations by which small traders 
are driven out of business, and not condemn industrial 
combinations by which American freemen are molested for 
seeking independently of all " unions " to earn their living. 
When they are not free to do both without being classed 
with the foes of labor, and when the organized labor of the 



144 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

country seems reluctant to rid itself of the extortioners, 
blackmailers and traitors who misrepresent its spirit and 
betray its cause, they may be excused if they moderate 
their zeal and wait until Trades-Unionism and Walking 
Delegates recover their common sense, and, what is of 
equal moment, their sense of justice, which is, unhappily, 
less common. 

It is important that the church in seeking to end strained 
relations should candidly remind the workshop that, while 
she should attempt and do more than at present, she can- 
not do everything. She must be met at least halfway. 
No class can ever be saved politically, religiously or 
socially by some external agency, apart from its own ex- 
ertions. 

Mr. Abbott, in the book already quoted from, asked the 
Baltimore labor leader what he thought preachers could do 
to interest those he represented in religion. This was the 
answer : " Why don't they give lectures on industrial ques- 
tions on Sunday? Why don't ministers send out circulars 
to the various Unions announcing such subjects as arbitra- 
tion, and bring delegates on both sides to compare views ? " 

Then followed this conversation : 

"What, in your opinion," inquired Mr. Abbott, "is 
the Young Men's Christian Association worth to the work- 
ing men? " 

"Well, it costs six dollars a year to belong, and there's 
not much charity in that." 

" But do the working men want charity ? " 

"Not a bit of it," was the quick rejoinder. And yet 
the author adds, giving his impressions, " I found the 
question uppermost in their minds as they think of the 
church — What is there in it for us ? " 

I am sure Mr. Abbott would not accuse these people of 
undue grasping and cupidity. He will, I think, agree 



THE CHURCH AND THE WORKSHOP 145 

with me in saying that among themselves and in their 
families they are generous to a fault. What this dialogue 
really denotes is a confused idea both of the nature and 
the function of religion. Working men to a very great 
extent have come to look on religion as a species of social- 
ism or communism, designed to establish a temporal para- 
dise, a mission which she is able to accomplish herself, 
unaided by her beneficiaries, and failing in which she is 
rightly abandoned and denounced. Hence it is that they 
hold her responsible for the continuance of their ills, and 
hence the stolid attitude assumed by so many that seems to 
say: " Here we are, help us, enrich us, redeem us; we 
have no objection, but we do not feel called on to assist 
you in carrying out your benevolent schemes." 

This shiftless indifference of the millions to their own 
uplifting has been noted by other students of the social 
question. It has been stated, though I think too unre- 
servedly, that they seem willing to accept any economic 
conditions provided "they have drink and sport and 
animal indulgence in more or less abundance." Further- 
more, "the breakdown to-day of the hopes and efforts of 
genuine reformers is the failure of the masses to rise to 
their opportunities, a failure, for which, not churches, nor 
economics, but they themselves are responsible. Find 
them a religion that can make them sober without giving 
up the drink, that can give them clean lives without self- 
struggle, that can make them do well without ceasing to 
do evil, and they will accept it with acclamation." 

While many artisans are exonerated from these charges 
by those of us who know them intimately, they represent 
a spirit not uncommon in their class, and which must be 
renounced if any real improvements are to be achieved. 
Instead of standing aloof, and instead of receiving each 
friendly approach sullenly and incredulously, instead of 



146 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

remaining passive, they ought to reciprocate heartily, and 
join hands with those who are seeking to help them and 
their families. Moreover, they should interest themselves 
sufficiently in their own happiness to strive to understand 
the genius and aims of Christianity. If they do this they 
will not, as John Mitchell says they have done, — "give up 
all hopes of the kingdom of God," — but they will per- 
ceive that it is a kingdom within, that it is spiritual, in- 
dwelling in the soul, and working itself out in all gracious, 
holy and fraternal ministries. When they comprehend 
this, they will comprehend the saying of the church that 
were she able to control all the wealth of her members and 
were she to divide it and distribute it in small sums to the 
toiling millions, or were she to spend it on libraries, dwell- 
ings and diversions for the poor, after the momentary sur- 
prise, relief and joy, the reaction would ensue, and society 
would be pretty much as it was before. Could manual 
workers of every degree be brought to appreciate this posi- 
tion they would come to distrust the socialistic programme ; 
they would seek more than ever the triumph of the 
"Kingdom" in their own hearts and in the whole com- 
munity ; and they would unite with the church and vote 
with the church against the rum oligarchy, the desecration 
of the Sabbath and every other enormity which impedes 
the progress of the kingdom, and from which labor suffers 
more than any other public interest. 

The failure of the workshop to bear her portion of the 
burden does not relieve the church of her responsibility. 
She must keep on doing what she can, whether she is dealt 
with generously or suspiciously. It is not for her to be 
deterred from her sublime mission on account of harsh 
words and base insinuations. She must remember that 
those whom she would assist have many trials, and that 
these are calculated to result in morbid moods and morbid 



THE CHURCH AND THE WORKSHOP 147 

judgments. Her sympathies must never fail. She must 
be patient, long-suffering and compassionate as was her 
Master. When He was reviled He reviled not again. 
She must also realize that she will gain no advantage by 
keeping out of sight the Being in whose name she works 
or the supreme spiritual object of her ministry. Some- 
times in her mission halls there has been an observable 
tendency to keep religion out of sight when relieving 
temporal necessities. Naturally the people conclude that 
religion has little or nothing to do with the benefits they 
receive, and consequently their attitude towards Christian- 
ity is not in the least modified favorably. 

I know the excuse is that many of the most needy cases 
are Roman Catholics and it is not right to introduce sec- 
tarianism into charity. I am not pleading for sectarian- 
ism, and am not urging that any effort should be made to 
proselyte Roman Catholics through temporal gifts. But if 
the hierarchy object to their poor knowing that Protestants 
assist them, then let them cease building so many expen- 
sive churches and take care of their own dependent com- 
municants. At present it seems that Protestants have to 
keep many of them from the evils of extreme poverty, and 
when the recipients of their bounty have acquired means 
for self-support and are able to contribute to the treasury 
of their church, they are not even to explain in answer to 
the boasting of Romanists that the multiplication of their 
cathedrals and other houses of worship is in some measure 
due to the disinterested benevolence of Protestants. The 
Catholics never assist any one without making known who 
the benefactor is, and never even open a charity school 
save in the name of the church. Protestants should learn 
of them. Nor can they do otherwise if they would not 
degrade and pauperize those whom they succor. Their 
benefactions ought always to be means to an end, and that 



148 THE MODEKN CKISIS IN KELIGION 

end not proselytism or denominationalism, but rather 
Christian manhood and Christian womanhood. That end 
will not be accomplished by keeping religion, its teachings 
and offices, from the thought and life of the masses. 

If the followers of our Lord would be successful they 
must not forget the diminishing number of opportunities 
for Sabbath repose and divine worship. It is estimated 
that four million of industrious people are compelled in 
the United States to work on Sunday, and this is more 
than equalled in Europe. This does not include innumer- 
able cases where the service rendered, as with physicians, 
waiters, preachers, is indispensable to the ordinary life of 
the community. The influence of so many being forced 
to pursue their ordinary task creates an atmosphere of 
secularism unsuited to church going. To this must be 
added the weariness resulting from late hours given to 
fatiguing work on Saturday night, unfitting for the privi- 
leges of the Sabbath. When there is not this let up a man 
is in danger of becoming part of the machine at which he 
works. 

Moreover, it should be remembered that with multitudes 
of toilers there is a struggle for mere existence. I have 
heard it stated on good authority, that with the exception 
of extraordinary times few artisans earn over $600 a year. 
There are slack seasons, there are times when they are un- 
employed, and putting good and bad together the wage 
does not average high. Then the housing of the people is 
not of the best. They are wedged in and crowded to- 
gether in our cities. For instance, there are 700,000 peo- 
ple dwelling in the lower section of Manhattan Island — 
the most densely populated area in the world. Think of 
350,000 people to the square mile ! In one section of 
fifty acres there are 80,000 souls, nearly 10,000 more than 
in the entire State of Nevada, which has over 70,000,000 



THE CHURCH AND THE WORKSHOP 149 

of acres. " There is a single block on the West Side of 
New York which contains 7,000 persons." The block 
looks "like one gigantic house, 600 feet long and 200 
wide." We are told by Jacob Riis and Charles Stelzle 
"that these overpopulated parts of our cities are inhabited 
by industrious working men." There is one tenement in 
which about 250 persons live. Let us admit that many 
are unskilled and others shiftless — still, breathing this at- 
mosphere and enduring these disadvantages can hardly be 
promotive of thrift, energy or piety. The ordinary condi- 
tions of decency and cleanliness cannot be preserved, and 
the unsavory surroundings must develop a spirit antagonis- 
tic to faith. The mass of these victims do not fear death, 
do not think of it, do not care to avoid it — and have no 
more thought of the life to come than we have of polar 
latitudes. They are hopeless. 

The depression of the artisan inclines him to yield to 
glittering temptations. There awaits him the saloon, the 
cheap theatre, the pool room, the club room, and the meet- 
ing for trade discussion, usually in a room provided by the 
saloon. He knows as well as we do the perils of the rum 
shop, but then — one must go somewhere. If we are un- 
sympathetic we will probably reply: Why does he not 
stay with his family, or go to prayer -meeting ? But were 
we unwise enough so to speak he would answer by asking : 
"Why don't you stay with yours? Why don't the leisure 
classes go to prayer-meeting ? ' ' 

A laborer was asked why he occasionally engaged in 
betting. "I'm not interested in horses," he replied, "but 
anything to break up this hell of monotony in my life." 
Another said : " No, it requires the theatre or the saloon 
with its glittering lights, its fitful music, the whirl of the 
dance, and alas, the tempting drink to make us forget the 
incessant drudgery of the day and of the morrow." I am 



150 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

no friend of these evils, but I know all over our cities, 
with the exception of a spiritually minded few, there is an 
intense craving for pleasure. Working people are like the 
rest of the population, only their narrow resources deter- 
mine for them the character of their diversions. Would it 
were otherwise — but it is not, and we must take things as 
they are and not be visionaries. The church will never 
succeed in even partially restoring the good feeling be- 
tween the workshop and herself until she has a sympathetic 
understanding of these conditions, and makes allowance 
for them in her endeavors at reconciliation. 

Moreover, she must study the best methods of overcom- 
ing prejudice and of winning the affections and confidence 
of the people. Her approach to them must be direct, open 
and manly. The artisan, as I have studied him, will not 
respond to pious affectation, or to snobbish clericalism, or 
to infelicitous evangelical extravagances. To assume that 
you are better or holier than he is, and to advertise the 
same so as to impress him is at once to excite his contempt 
and distrust. Or to send into his family or neighborhood 
the feeblest representatives of Christianity, while the men 
of brain and position in pew and pulpit stand aloof, is to 
doom the effort to failure. Nor will he be greatly touched 
by inquiries after his soul if propounded in the usual per- 
functory, metallic manner, and unaccompanied by sympa- 
thetic concern for the difficulties of his temporal lot. This 
whole problem is too hard for novices. When the church 
realizes this, when she adapts her houses of worship and 
her services, as I have already outlined, to all classes, when 
she is sufficiently in earnest to invite working men and 
women to her courts, and when she is so deeply concerned 
as to send her most gifted ministers to visit personally from 
house to house and to evince their kindly solicitude for the 
faith and happiness of the people, then and not till then 



THE CHURCH AND THE WORKSHOP 151 

will she prove herself capable of dealing with the most vital 
religious issue of the age. 

More than this, the church must continually maintain the 
dignity of labor and the possibility of living the divine life 
in the workshop. Sometimes I fear she has not magnified 
these conceptions as she ought, and, inadvertently, let us 
hope, has occasionally obscured them. This she has done 
when she has spoken of the humiliation of our Lord in such 
a way as to create the impression that it was due to His 
lowly social position, being born a peasant and doomed to 
toil, and not to His condescension in assuming our com- 
mon human nature. The doctrine of the Bible is not that 
He was humbled by being born in a carpenter's family, but 
by being born in the likeness of sinful flesh, and the humil- 
iation would have been none the less had His mother been 
the wife of Octavius Caesar. The importance of this dis- 
tinction the friends of Christianity have often overlooked. 
Yet how absurd to assume that in the judgment of heaven 
a workshop is less honorable than a palace. Imagine for 
the sake of real dignity the Christ of history deciding to be 
born in the royal residence at Belgrade, with Queen Draga 
for mother instead of in some "cottage far apart where 
God can hear the language of the soul, and in His book of 
life the inmates poor enroll." There would have been 
more dignity in having the original hog-driver, from whom 
the Belgrade dynasty sprang, for a father than the weak 
and unfortunate prince who was anointed. Let us remem- 
ber that Jesus chose the working man's station, not because 
it was less dignified, but because it was most conducive to 
the success of His mission. 

All this the church should make clear, clear to herself as 
to others, that neither she nor working people may be mis- 
led by unwarranted distinctions. She must also encourage 
the artisan to believe that it is possible for him, however 



152 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

hard his lot, to imitate his Saviour. The difficulties in 
the way of his doing this are really no greater than in other 
departments of life. We may ask the lawyer, the physi- 
cian, the statesman — and even the preacher, and the 
answer will be the same — that the world does not lend it- 
self to Christian growth. The drift is the other way. 
When you climb the mountain, there are always hardships 
to be endured and overcome. But as far as I can gather 
it is possible to breathe the divine spirit in the workshop, 
and labor rightly viewed is conducive to godliness. For- 
merly many humble persons became noble Christian men, 
like the fathers of Burns and Carlyle, and many in the 
same " peerage of poverty," notwithstanding their burdens, 
have risen, like Hugh Miller, to positions of influence in 
the world of thought and literature. Even as David when 
a shepherd boy, rose to the sublimest heights of poetry, so 
others, equally lowly, having no lands, no Newport villas, 
no palaces, or material splendors, have created for them- 
selves vast estates in the realms of fancy, and have held 
communion with saints and angels. Imagination has sup- 
plied them with nobler joys and higher fellowships than 
money could purchase. When these possibilities are over- 
looked, and the stress is laid by the church as well as by 
the artisan on the supreme worth of gold and silver and 
the means of sensuous enjoyment ; when both adopt the 
tone of pity and commiseration for those who cannot com- 
pete in luxury with the dreary fashionables of modern life, 
whose thoughts are mainly occupied with tailors, dress- 
makers, operas, theatres and the restless going and coming 
between city and country; then the divine life will nat- 
urally be neglected and come to be regarded as unimpor- 
tant or impracticable. 

I have no compassion to waste on the man who has to 
work, only for him who seeks employment and cannot find 



THE CHUECH AND THE WORKSHOP 153 

it. Work is a joy, an inspiration, a benediction! It is an 
evangel of good-will to the world, an apocalypse of future 
blessedness on earth. It is the creator, conqueror, civi- 
lizer. Every day it keeps the world from hunger, cold, 
filth, suffering, wretchedness and catastrophe. Wherever 
we view the race to which we belong one discovery awaits 
us — it is that labor determines the height and character 
of the people's material and social progress. No work — 
savagery. Inferior and intermittent work — discontent, law- 
lessness, brutality. But work for all, reasonable and regu- 
lar work, work under wholesome conditions and adequately 
remunerated — liberty, education, temperance, and all the 
virtues flourish. What a gross perversion of things most 
evident is it to imply that that which has in its bosom 
"the potency and promise" of the millennial age, and 
which allies the creature with the Creator, is a hindrance 
to the divine life and unfits for its sacred experiences and 
inspiring hopes. 

The church, if she would win back the workshop, must 
not only preach this, she must believe it. Not until this is 
her sincere conviction will she appreciate the dignity and 
importance of the task that has too long been neglected, 
and bend all her energies to its achievement. 

To me as I have contemplated Jesus as the carpenter, 
standing by the bench in the little shop at Nazareth, as 
depicted by Holman Hunt, the significance of the vision 
has seemed to be that through Him labor in the fullness of 
time shall be relieved of its disabilities, purged of its frail- 
ties and infirmities, and come to serve as the latest revela- 
tion of God's indwelling in humanity. He is to be the 
source of its regeneration and the crown of its glory. 
Heretofore He has disclosed Himself in prophets and apos- 
tles, in literature and art, and in some degree, we admit, 
in manual toil. But something better awaits the world, — a 



154 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

new apocalypse, as grand as anything John beheld in 
Patmos. It remains for industry to be glorified. Every- 
thing that obscures or defames the dignity of labor, 
whether the strifes, the bitterness and brutalities, the short- 
sightedness, recklessness and violence of its representatives, 
or the sneers, contempt and the rapacious injustice of its 
employers, shall pass away ; and the new age shall behold, 
what one of our poets has already sweetly chimed — and 
which without Christ working through His church can 
never be fulfilled: 

" From street and square, from hill and glen, 
Of this vast world beyond my door, 
I hear the tread of marching men, 
The patient armies of the poor. 

" The halo of the city's lamps 

Hangs a vast torchlight in the air, 

I watch it through the evening damps ; 

The masters of the world are there. 

" Not ermine clad not clothed in state, 
Their title deeds not yet made plain ; 
But walking early, toiling late, 
The heirs of all the earth remain. 

" Some day by laws as fixed and fair 
As guide the planets in their sweep, 
The children of each outcast heir 
The harvest fruits of time shall reap. 

" The peasant's brain shall yet be wise, 
The untamed pulse beat calm and still, 
The blind shall see, the lowly rise, 

And work in peace time's wondrous law. 

" Some day without a trumpet's call, 

This news shall o'er the earth be blown ; 
The heritage comes back to all ; 

The myriad monarchs take their own." 



VII 
THE ARREST OF ETHICAL PROGRESS 

"And they said unto Moses, Speak thou with us, and we will 
hear ; but let not God speak with us, lest we die." — Exodus 20 : ig. 

AMID the roar of thunders, the glare of lightnings 
and the blare of trumpets the footsteps of the 
Almighty echoed on the storm-scarred summit of 
Mount Sinai. With anxious eyes the people had been 
looking for the fulfillment of the promise made to Moses 
regarding the coming of the Infinite One. And now, on 
the third day, with the dawning of the morning, instead of 
the sun, God Himself in mysterious majesty rose upon the 
world. The mountain quaked, and belched forth smoke ; 
the earth trembled and terrifying darkness robed the 
granite mass in sombre glory, and the Invisible Sovereign 
drew near " in the secret place of thunder." 

When the sublime sounds which ushered this event had 
ceased, when the noises which had smitten the multitudes 
with awe had gone dumb, the silence, more appalling than 
clash and roar of nature's orchestra was broken by that, 
which no human language can describe — a voice, the voice 
of Him, who in "the beginning spake and it was done, 
who commanded and it stood fast," and which "then 
shook the earth," but which shall yet shake "not the earth 
only, but also heaven." 

Wondrous privilege, holy joy, to hear the majesty of that 
voice in whose sacred tones must blend the harmonies of 
the universe and the melody of angel song, which being 

155 



156 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

itself the source of all music must fall upon the soul with 
all the ravishing sweetness of divinest strains. And, yet, 
when these emancipated Hebrews heard that which had 
disturbed primeval darkness, had broken the solitude of 
eternity, and had charmed into being all things that make 
our world an abode of loveliness, they shrank back with 
fear, and cried : " Speak thou, Moses, with us and we will 
hear ; but let not God speak with us, lest we die. ' ' 

The several features of this magnificent scene, and of the 
impressive interposition of the Almighty, were worthy the 
occasion. A nation had been born. From the gran- 
deur and affluence of ancient Egypt, a people, following the 
instincts of liberty and the command of Heaven, had gone 
forth into the dreariness and poverty of the desert. They 
desired to have a name among the nations of the earth, to 
found a government, to inaugurate a civilization. To ac- 
complish this they had a country, towards which they were 
journeying ; they had numbers, wealth, skill, and courage, 
but they needed law — moral law — to impart soundness and 
stability to that structure which they were intent on rear- 
ing. Without this everything else would have been in 
vain. The wisdom of the Egyptians which they had 
learned in bondage, the military discipline which hard 
necessity had taught, and the riches of their enemies which 
they had carried with them, would only have hastened 
their ruin, had not all- regulating law been added. Un- 
sanctified knowledge would have intoxicated, unrestrained, 
soldierly ardor would have bred dissensions, and their very 
wealth would have proven a source of weakness and cor- 
ruption. They required the Decalogue, the great Ethical 
Code ; and that it might be given in a manner that would 
at once convey an idea of its significance and sanctity, its 
greatness and goodness, its authority and its advantageous- 
ness, it was accompanied with all the scenic splendor of Sinai. 



THE AEEEST OF ETHICAL PEOGEESS 157 

Centuries have come and sped away since that august 
morning conferred so beneficent a gift; the years have 
followed, swallowing up years as the waves of the sea en- 
gulf each other, and the lesson then taught has been re- 
peated, and its truth verified by the strange vicissitudes of 
countless generations. The Jews themselves at times re- 
volting from the statutes enacted for their government, fur- 
nish sad proof that no nation can prosper which is either 
ignorant of right and wrong, or ignores their eternal dis- 
tinctions. When they trampled beneath their feet the com- 
mandments, they became the prey of the spoiler, were be- 
trayed by traitors, oppressed by enemies, and chastised by 
God. 

The annals of Greece and Rome, of monarchies, empires 
and republics confirm with instructive unanimity this lesson. 
From these we learn that ethics underlie all progress, all 
order, peace and true greatness. Without them the worst 
elements of society bear rule, the baser qualities predomi- 
nate, and the national glory declines and sets in blood and 
gloom. As immorality brings neither health nor happiness 
to the individual, neither can it bring them to the body- 
politic. As it eliminates iron from the human system and 
introduces the virus of death, displaying itself in ulcers, 
abscesses, festering sores, in flabbiness and flaccidness, so 
it debilitates and prostrates the State, paralyzing its justice 
and corrupting all the sources of its strength. No nation 
is, therefore, wise that fails to provide for its own ethical 
training and development. To expend large sums of 
money on schools, in the service of knowledge, and to 
lavish fortunes on internal improvements and the advance- 
ment of art, and to be indifferent to the morals of the 
present and of future generations is in the highest degree 
reprehensible. Such a policy is suicidal. It is a tomb- 
building, grave-digging policy ; a policy that is sharpen- 



158 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

ing the knife for the throat of the country, and that is 
arranging for its inevitable funeral. Statesmen who de- 
serve the name, and patriots who are not counterfeits, will 
ever feel an abiding interest in the science of right living, 
and will exert themselves to the utmost to promote its 
interests. 

It is, therefore, surprising when the Almighty drew near 
to supply the everlasting foundation of that, which the brief 
experience of the Hebrews in attempting self-government 
must have taught them was the one lacking requisite, that 
they should have thrust a creature between themselves and 
Him, and should have desired that he, not God, should 
speak unto them. 

Perhaps it will be said that the reason for their conduct 
is implied in the phrase, " lest we die," and that they were 
simply impelled by fear. But this does not altogether 
clear up the mystery. Why should they have been afraid, 
when God was doing them the greatest favor, and was 
conferring on them the blessing most needful for their 
welfare ? Believe me, the explanation suggested is inade- 
quate. Their alarm reveals a tendency, doubtless the re- 
sult of sin, and which has been manifested in every age. 
Transgression has formed a chasm between the creature 
and the Creator. It has severed man from God, and pre- 
disposed him to close ear and heart to His direct commu- 
nications. These poor people in the desert felt this aversion 
and accounted for it as they did, in which they may have 
been sincere — for doubtless they analyzed not closely their 
own motives — and supposed, probably, that they were prais- 
ing the Almighty by their humility. But the fact remains, 
that they had heard the commandments and were yet alive 
and were in no danger of dying ; for God's word giveth 
life, and bringeth not death. Theirs was simply the spirit 
of the entire race that is not inclined to hear Him who is 



THE AKKEST OF ETHICAL PROGRESS 159 

their Lord and Father, and that essays to compliment Him 
by saying that He is too great to talk and they too frail to 
listen j and that consequently, all that they may know of 
Him, of themselves or duty should proceed from man. 
" Speak thou with us, and let not God speak with us," is 
at once expressive, and the repeated blunder of humanity. 
Hegel refers to the prevailing egotism that, denying the 
possibility of knowing God, enjoys the convenient license 
of wandering as far as it lists in the direction of its own 
fancies, and we must have observed that these fancies are 
decidedly irreligious. Nature is a revelation of the Infinite 
One — 

" Every bird that sings 
And every flower that stars the elastic sod, 
And every breath the radiant summer brings, 
To the pure spirit is a word of God." 

But we must have noticed how impatient the generality 
of men are with natural theology. To them the heavens 
declare the glory of the astronomer, not of the Maker ; and 
as to the earth, it reveals the footprints of a Miller, or a 
Hutton, not those of the Creator. The efforts of many 
who claim to work in the name of science are mainly di- 
rected towards an explanation of the universe which shall 
render the Divine Being superfluous. Almost any theory, 
however gross, absurd and untenable, which claims to have 
accomplished this feat, will find ready and credulous up- 
holders. The world wants man to speak, and if his puny 
voice can drown that of God it experiences a thrill of de- 
light. This unhappy tendency has manifested itself in the 
study of morals as decidedly as in the investigation of 
physics. In the past, and in the present, attempts have 
been made to found ethics on the wisdom of man, on some 
theory of human devising, or of human philosophy. Epi- 
curus sought to build a complete system on the desire for 



160 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

happiness alone ; the Stoics with more grandeur, but not 
with more success, on the abstract idea of goodness. The 
Utilitarians aim to establish morals on the basis of self- 
interest and the useful ; and the Intuitionalists on an origi- 
nal principle of right and wrong — all of them conscien- 
tiously dispensing with the Almighty. Herbert Spencer 
worked earnestly, in the same direction, and an eminent 
ethical culturist in New York has been ridiculing the peo- 
ple for bowing before God — a mere myth — whereas if they 
desired inspiration to right-doing they had better bow to 
the memory of Abraham Lincoln. Many of the people 
with as little thought as characterized their prototypes, are 
crying out to these theorizers, " Speak thou with us, and let 
not God speak." 

And yet only the voice of God, only His authority, can 
furnish adequate grounds for a permanent and practical 
ethical system. I shall not undertake an argument in de- 
fense of this position, and yet a few words may not be out 
of place. Sophocles, referring to the ideas of right and 
wrong, said, many years ago, "In highest heaven they 
have their birth, neither did the mortal race of man beget 
them, nor shall oblivion ever put them to sleep ; the power 
of God is mighty in them, and groweth not old." Kant 
exclaims : " Duty ! wondrous thought that worketh neither 
by foul insinuation, flattery, nor by any threat, but merely 
by holding up thy naked law in the soul, and so extorting 
for thyself always reverence, if not always obedience; be- 
fore whom all appetites are dumb, however secretly they 
rebel ; whence the original ? " His philosophy answers — 
God. Such thinkers realize that the divine voice in the 
soul, if not in a revelation, is indispensable to goodness. 
They may phrase it differently, but they believe with us 
that morals cannot ignore religion. In those countries 
where successful efforts have been made to separate them 



THE ARREST OF ETHICAL PROGRESS 161 

the most disastrous results have followed. France tried it, 
and she was overwhelmed with shame. Germany is ex- 
perimenting in the same direction, and with the spread of 
infidelity the number of criminals has increased. What a 
comment on the influence of godless ethics. 

When men believe that there is nothing sacred in the 
idea of right and wrong, that they are merely formal dis- 
tinctions — the effect of education, or of slow development 
— is it wonderful that they should regard them as only fit 
to be dealt with as circumstances or pleasure may dictate ? 
Such is the practical outcome. If man has created these 
distinctions, then man may surely set them at defiance ; and 
if he is a creature of circumstances, then circumstances 
may be allowed to control him ; and if he is a child of the 
devil, if there is any such disconsolate personage, he may 
with blamelessness serve him, as a New England transcend- 
entalist has intimated. 

May we not also ask ourselves, if, as many suppose, we 
are deteriorating morally, whether the retrogression is not 
due to a declining sense of God's supremacy as lawgiver 
and of His presence in modern life ? Observe the multi- 
tudes as they wearily tramp over London Bridge from sun- 
rise to sunset, or the crowds that throng the thoroughfares 
of New York, Paris, and Chicago ; or enter the slums, the 
horse-show and the theatres, and it will not be easy to be- 
lieve that God is in these thoughts of these people. It is dif- 
ficult to imagine that they would care to have God talk 
with them, and many are as they are, careless, superficial, 
soulless, because they do not credit that He has ever spoken 
to any one. With what avidity do they welcome what 
they are pleased to regard as emancipating theories of 
morals, theories that eliminate the " blood and iron" from 
the Ten Commandments, and that relegate the precepts of 
our Lord to the realm of visions. 



162 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

But have we deteriorated ? Has the world grown worse ? 
Can it fairly be alleged that we are not as temperate, as 
honest, as chivalrous, as generous, as just as our ancestors? 
Behold, how readily men of common mold, — policemen, 
firemen, sailors, — lay down their lives for others. Mark 
the unparalleled liberality of our millionaires, and the in- 
numerable charitable causes, flower missions, slum missions, 
open-air funds, summer outings, refuges, asylums, — that 
excite the benevolence of the rich. The earth is full of 
beautiful charities, of helpful ministries, of gracious sacri- 
fices for others, and only a slanderous pessimism would in- 
timate that " the former days were better than these." In 
all the good being done, in all the bounties conferred, I 
rejoice ; but if we are what we ought to be why is the need 
so great and constantly pressing, and pressing beyond the 
ability of charity to meet ? Evidently there is something 
wrong. We may be better than our fathers, but with our 
knowledge and opportunities are we as good as we should 
be ? While we may have advanced beyond the ethical life 
of the past, has our moral life kept pace with our material 
and political progress ? There may be no real retrogres- 
sion, but there may be a pause, a halt, an arrest in ethical 
development. Which ? 

Comparisons are frequently unsatisfactory and fruitless. 
There are and there always have been individuals who fail 
to see the happier and more hopeful side of their own age, 
and who are so enamored of the past as to be blind to its 
deficiencies. So, likewise, there are those who glorify 
their own times and hardly count it possible that a virtue 
should have flourished in the times that are gone. If a 
man is minded to be partisan it would not be difficult 
to make out a case favorable either to ancients or moderns. 

In this connection the words of Tacitus are not amiss : 
" Morality, like everything else, moves round in a circle/' 



THE ARREST OF ETHICAL PROGRESS 163 

eddies and retreats, swirls and moves forward. So also 
the wise admonition of Seneca : " We must guard against 
letting blame fall on our own age. This has always been 
the complaint of our ancestors, that manners have been 
corrupted, that vice reigns, that human life is deteriorat- 
ing and falling into every kind of wickedness. We la- 
ment in the same strain, and our descendants will do the 
same after us. In reality, however, these things do not 
change, but only fluctuate slightly at times like the ebb and 
flow of the sea, now one vice prevails most and now another 
— but bad men have always existed and always will." 

Possibly the world has only entered on one of these 
special seasons of " fluctuation," and to-day it may simply 
be making no ethical headway. Comparisons with the 
past would prove profitless, and might even prevent our 
reaching just conclusions concerning the place of morality 
in our age. I, therefore, press on the attention of the 
reader my own conviction, a conviction I desire to vindi- 
cate that endeavors may be made to remedy the evils that 
exist, namely : — that the age is practically at a standstill 
morally, that it has not gained in righteousness as it has in 
knowledge, and that in virtue and right-doing it is not 
keeping pace with the grand march of scientific, artistic 
and commercial progress. 

It is most fitting that in disclosing the ground on which 
this contention rests, we should in a brief preliminary way 
determine the scope and significance of moral conduct. 
Schleiermacher has reduced "Ethics" to three funda- 
mental ideas — the idea of good, the idea of virtue, the idea 
of duty. The first refers to the end contemplated, right, 
justice and the welfare of others ; the second concerns the 
quality of the agent, his character, as Aristotle would term 
it ; and the third, relates to the law, and the Lawgiver, the 
real sources of the consciousness of obligation, Paul Janet 



164 THE MODERN CEISIS IN RELIGION 

in his "Theory of Morals " adopts the same classification, 
and it is sufficient for the purposes of this discussion. 

Our inquiry leads us to ask whether, we do not in a 
purely sentimental way, perform spasmodic acts of kindness, 
and fail to keep steadfastly before us in our dealings the 
happiness and well-being of others, and whether we so 
regulate and govern our own soul and our daily life 
as to be ourselves what our deeds denote ; whether 
we are actuated by a high sense of the solemn dignity 
of law and of our accountability to the Judge of all? 
The old Romans prided themselves on their "fides" in 
contrast with the esthetic amiability and pliability of 
the Greeks, and the mendacity and perfidy of the 
Phoenicians. What, say we, are the moderns patterning 
after the Romans or the Greeks ? Are they ruled by the 
three ideas of Schleiermacher, and are they conscientiously 
devoted to them in the spirit of the ancient "fides," so 
devoted that they would themselves rather lose money and 
fame than bring injury and sorrow to a fellow being, or be- 
smirch and stain their own characters, or violate, evade 
and degrade the law ? This is the standard ! How near 
does this generation approach it, and how deeply concerned 
are the people to make it the governing principle of the age ? 

Let us see. As the world-panorama unrolls before our 
eyes, the scenes enacted in the arena of national and inter- 
national politics, in social and even religious affairs are not 
surcharged with the light of sincerity, disinterestedness, 
integrity and purity, and the atmosphere is laden with the 
foul mephitic elements of vice and conviviality. Impres- 
sive and significant the address of President Eliot a few 
months ago at New Haven on the moral failures of our 
educational system. He declared that for two generations 
we have been struggling with the barbarous vice of drunk- 
enness, and with " the extraordinarily unintelligent form of 



THE ARREST OF ETHICAL PROGRESS 165 

pleasurable excitement" — gambling, and have practically 
failed in suppressing either. To all of which he adds : 

" A similar unfavourable inference concerning popular 
education may be drawn from the quality of the popular 
theatres of to-day. The popular taste is for trivial spec- 
tacles, burlesque, vulgar vaudeville, extravaganza, and 
melodrama, and the stage often presents to unmoved audi- 
ences scenes and situations of an unwholesome sort. 

"Americans are curiously subject to medical delusions; 
because they easily fall victims to that commonest of falla- 
cies post hoe, ergo propter hoc. They are the greatest con- 
sumers of patent medicines in the known world, and the 
most credulous patrons of all sorts of ' medicine men ' and 
women, and of novel healing arts." 

This serious indictment may well sober our imaginative 
optimists and compel them to a more reasonable estimate 
of the difficulties in the way of the ethical and social mil- 
lennium which they announce to be at hand, " even at our 
very door." 

A more scathing arraignment of society in its heights and 
depths, particularly in its heights, comes from England. 
Several writers have been discussing the very straightfor- 
ward question : "Are We Going to the Devil? " and the 
Christian Commonwealth favors us with an admirable 
compendium of what has been said, and why it has been 
said, on this interesting though somewhat sensational 
inquiry. 

" In the days of old the great baron had great rights and 
enormous powers, but he also had clearly recognized duties. 
He held the land, and that land was held by him for the 
raising of men in the first case, and for the raising of per- 
sonal revenue afterwards, and all rights arose from duties 
that had to be duly performed. And the men to be raised 
were no underfed, over-worked, ill-housed laborers, but 



166 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

that 'happy breed of men' eulogized by Shakespeare, 
who, when led by the chivalry of England, were the incom- 
parable infantry that became the wonder and terror of the 
world. To-day we hear of privileges, but we hear little 
of duties, complain the candid social critics. The noble 
visits his estates for the shooting, and an agent collects his 
rents. His tenants in turn hire their laborers at a wage 
that keeps body and soul together till strength to work de- 
cays, and when too old for labor they are sent to the 
union. Then comes a wail of utter despair. It is declared 
that men without honor and women without decency are 
the l gentle ' of to-day ; that women in the upper section 
look on their own degradation as a smart advertisement, 
and their husbands, viler still, content to know and be 
silent, share in the spoils." 

In all Christian charity let us make allowances for the 
possible rhetorical fervor of the indignant critics and as- 
sume that they exaggerate the evils they describe ; never- 
theless, as they write as students of their times and are not 
preachers, we must accept their statements as worthy of 
some degree of consideration. Even if they are only ap- 
proximately correct they furnish no reassuring picture of 
our position, and though we scout the idea that society 
either in Great Britain or the United States is going to the 
devil we may fairly conclude that the devil, whoever that 
highly gifted and melancholy personage may be, is going 
for society. 

An English clergyman, who has for many years resided 
in America, observes that the last thing he would say of 
our people is that they are law-abiding. He is a well- 
informed gentleman, and doubtless his deliberate opinion 
is entitled to weight ; but I am inclined to the view that 
other nations share with us this unenviable distinction. 
The London papers have been filled for the last two or 



THE ARREST OF ETHICAL PROGRESS 167 

three years with complaints of the unbridled license and 
violence of the hooligans and they have been compelled to 
chronicle the disasters wrought by Jabez Balfour scandals, 
and by the miscarriage of get-rich-schemes which have in- 
volved the reputation of men notable and respected. 
Austria-Hungary, likewise, hardly knows what to do with 
its riotous mobs, and Florence and Milan have been dis- 
turbed by law-breakers. From Belgrade, stained with 
blood, to St. Petersburg, black with cruelty, there is a 
barely suppressed revolt from the reigning order whether it 
be good or bad. France has had its Panama rogueries and 
its Dreyfus outrages, its business affairs have been black- 
ened by frauds, and its citizens have been excited to the 
trampling beneath their feet the safeguards of personal 
liberty in their mad frenzy against the Jews. 

Germany also has presented the pitiable spectacle of of- 
ficers in the army abusing their power, fiendishly torturing 
subalterns in their command, as in the case of one Bayer, 
who was so abused that his body was covered with hideous 
sores, his flesh lacerated with wounds, his hearing and eye- 
sight both destroyed and his mental and physical condition 
hopelessly ruined. Another instance stands out in horri- 
ble relief, that of an officer who ran a personal friend 
through the body because of an imaginary affront to his 
rank. And now the Berlin Church Synod has been con- 
strained to protest against the flagrant immorality of the 
Prussian capital. Its memorial sets forth that one mar- 
riage out of every twelve contracted in Berlin is followed 
by divorce. Moreover, the attention of the authorities 
is called to the degrading influence of the multiplying low- 
class variety theatres and music halls, and to the total dis- 
regard by the restaurants and liquor shops of the Sabbath, 
not even closing their doors during the hours devoted to 
divine worship. 



168 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

We are as bad as others. This, I fear, cannot be dis- 
proved. We have our army excesses, as other nations 
have, brutal inhumanity in inflicting the so-called " water- 
cure" on helpless prisoners, and disgrace in exalting and 
crowning with honor an officer who has violated the sanctity 
of hospitality and taken advantage of the compassion of an 
enemy to betray him. And, what is particularly humiliat- 
ing, comparatively few of the people are moved by the in- 
famy of the transaction, and those who have ventured to 
criticise it have been denounced by some partisan news- 
papers as lacking in patriotism. Milton wrote — 

" This is true liberty, when free born men, 
Having to advise the public, may speak free, 
Which he who can and will deserves high praise, 
Who neither can nor will may hold his peace. 
What can be juster in a state than this," 

a passage which intemperate apologists for iniquity ought 
seriously to ponder. 

That lawlessness is unhappily prevalent in our land there 
are many illustrations to prove. Complaints are not un- 
common that the police in several of our larger cities fre- 
quently act without due warrant of law, making illegal 
arrests, entering premises without legal authority, unmerci- 
fully beating prisoners on the streets, and subjecting them 
to illegal methods of examination — called the " sweat box," 
the " third degree" — while members of the force, not a 
few, are themselves guilty of protecting crime and vice for 
the sake of the reward obtainable in the shape of " graft." 
Political " machines " are commonly reputed and believed 
to be as corrupt as the most conscienceless ward politician, 
and equally indifferent to Constitutional provisions and 
municipal ordinances. Even candidates for so responsible 
a position as mayor of a great city are occasionally moved 



THE AREEST OF ETHICAL PROGEESS 169 

to assure the denizens of disorderly neighborhoods that if 
they are elected the laws will be " liberally" interpreted 
and administered. 

Men of good repute, for the sake of office, have to seek 
for votes in the sewers and gutters ; and every election in 
the United States seems to strengthen the hold that the 
vicious classes have on the throat of the country, as they 
are sought after, courted, and made to feel their impor- 
tance to one or the other, and perhaps to both, of the rival 
parties seeking power. Worse than all, it is now charged 
that great corporations are so indifferent to the moral well- 
being of society, that for favors shown they will work to 
elect the very worst type of municipal rulers. Hence, on 
the close of a recent election a leading newspaper indulges 
in the following reflections : 

" This community will carry over one resentment from 
the preelection agitation. It does not forget that the cor- 
porations operating public franchises did all they could in 
the campaign just ended to help a ticket that stood for the 
misgovernment of the city and the debauching of the peo- 
ple. They did it openly, in cynical contempt of the senti- 
ment that took just offense at their interference. . . . 
But for the corporations the line of good government in 
this city might have been unbroken from 1895 to 1905. 
They nominated one Mayoralty candidate in 1897 and 
elected another. They have always been on the side of 
bad government. The strongest single force for evil in 
this community is not the pitiful band of dive-keepers, or 
the petty barons of pool and policy, but the respectable 
gentlemen who direct the affairs of the surface, elevated, 
subway and suburban railroads, and the gas and electric 
light corporations — men, some of them, who figure in the 
functions of exclusive society, and are cited as 'representa- 
tive New Yorkers.' " 



170 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

Again, making allowance for overstatement, these confi- 
dent assertions, taken with reserve, bring to light a condi- 
tion of things that must be sapping the foundations of vir- 
tue, and which, if true, will ultimately produce a revulsion 
of feeling in favor of abolishing private ownership of public 
utilities. 

We need only touch on the frequent lynchings in 
various portions of the land ; the alarming increase and 
growing facility of divorce; the development in some 
quarters of semi-slavery in labor camps as cruel and devilish 
as the chattel slavery of old ; and the astounding extension 
of adulteration in nearly every line of goods, with the de- 
plorable revelations of fiduciary trickery in leading mone- 
tary circles, to corvince that as a people we are making no 
perceptible advance in morals. 

A contemporary writer has been calling attention to the 
honesty that pervades the modern business world, and in 
proof of his contention cites the prompt way in which mer- 
chants meet their obligations with each other, and the 
readiness of guarantee companies to insure the integrity of 
those who occupy positions of trust. I am not challenging 
the uprightness of the major part of those who engage in 
commercial pursuits. Still I would not have appealed to 
the guarantee companies in support of my confidence, 
whose very existence implies distrust and the need that is 
felt for every precaution being taken against probable pecu- 
lation and embezzlement. But in forming a sound judg- 
ment on this point it is for us to reconcile if we can some 
current business methods with any just standard of right 
and wrong, whether formulated by philosopher or preacher, 
by Confucius, Zarathustra, Buddha, or Jesus Christ. 

When capital combines, and for the sake of obtaining a 
monopoly employs threats and trickery to drive small com- 
petitors from business and deprive them of their means of 



THE ARREST OF ETHICAL PROGRESS 171 

livelihood ; or when it over-capitalizes enormously and out 
of all proportion to real values, and through the influence 
of great financial names issues stocks which are purely fan- 
tastic investments of no worth, and when the day of reck- 
oning comes with smug satisfaction the great financiers re- 
joice that the water is being squeezed out which they 
poured in, while their own bonds are dry and safe ; or 
when advantage is taken of the ignorant, and when the 
money of widows and poor people is swallowed up by cor- 
porations, building loan companies, and other fair promis- 
ing organizations, by what system of ethics can these 
measures be vindicated ? They cannot be adjusted to the 
teachings of the slave Epictetus, neither can they be har- 
monized with the moral maxims of Marcus Aurelius. Plato 
would scorn them. Aristotle would denounce them, and 
no heathen writer of repute would advocate them in a 
treatise on casuistry. To imagine, therefore, that they can 
be reconciled with the moral precepts of Christ is a 
most tremendous assumption as gratuitous as it is insult- 
ing. 

It may be answered : These and other heathen sanc- 
tioned worse things than are countenanced to-day. It may 
be so, though I am not sure of it. But this is to beg the 
question. I am not arguing that we are less honorable 
than our sires and more corrupt in our dealings, neither am 
I contending that we have not advanced in sentimentality, 
in philanthropy and the esthetic way of doing questionable 
acts — for we are surely less coarse, brutal and vulgar — but, 
and this only, that we have not levelled up ethically with 
our educational advantages, our religion and our manifold 
opportunities for knowing and doing what is right and just. 

I have kept in the background what must be apparent 
to every observer that we in America, and in Europe as 
well, have become more luxurious in our tastes, more 



172 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

indulgent in our treatment of society scandals, more lavish 
in our expenditures on fashionable foibles, more inclined 
to tolerate dram drinking in women, more favorably dis- 
posed to the less elevating and less desirable forms of 
theatrical entertainment, and more, far more than in 
the past, given over to the pursuit of pleasurable 
amusement. To which, indeed, we are in cities so fre- 
netically devoted that serious attention to serious things is 
increasingly harder to gain ; yes, so devoted that a repre- 
sentative of the dramatic profession said a few days ago 
that the stage had greater power over the people than the 
pulpit. I am not prepared to admit the tenableness of this 
statement. It may be in New York that the theatre is 
more influential than the church. That is for those more 
familiar with its affairs than I am to determine. If it is 
so, various mischievous tendencies in the life of the 
metropolis are easily explicable ; and if it is so the deepest 
solicitude may well be felt for its ethical future. I am, 
however, satisfied that the theatre is not as potent through- 
out the land as the gentleman referred to imagines, and I 
am indulging the hope that in our cities also for the credit 
of the citizens generally its alleged supremacy may speedily 
cease. 

Solemn is the responsibility of the church universal at this 
juncture. She is the duly accredited leader in morals, and 
no halt can occur in ethical progress without reflecting on 
her efficiency or faithfulness. When the advance of an 
army is checked the authorities hold the chief officer in 
command primarily accountable. Some degree of blame 
may rest on his subordinates ; but he is not permitted to 
skulk behind their failure. He must answer for himself. 
The same rule applies to the captain of a vessel when the 
voyage miscarries or the ship is lost, and it governs in 
cabinets, in political parties and in all other great human 



THE ARREST OF ETHICAL PROGRESS 173 

interests where generalship is indispensable. Nor will the 
community exempt the church from its operation. 

She claims to be the representative of God Almighty 
and to be influenced continually by His spirit — the spirit 
of righteousness. On earth she is the only organism that 
claims to be directly related to the Infinite One and to be 
His dwelling-place, the seat of His authority and the 
mouthpiece of His law. Her mission, however appre- 
hended, is distinctly ethical. If it is viewed as a re- 
demption, it is a redemption from sin, and if as a govern- 
ment among men it is the government of purity, right and 
justice. She is, therefore, in the world to make the world 
morally better, and she must in a measurable degree be 
held responsible if the improvement is not apparent and 
continuous. I am not intimating that blame does not 
exist elsewhere. That is conceded. But her obligation 
cannot be ignored. This is her supreme business. She is 
on earth for this very purpose. Has she herself de- 
teriorated as a moral teacher ? Has she become nerveless 
or apathetic ? Shall the commander of an army on which 
hangs the nation's honor be held to a strict account, and 
shall not the church on whose faithfulness depends the 
nation's ethical life be required to give an account of her 
stewardship ? 

I am afraid it must be admitted that the church has not 
preserved the confidence of society as a moral leader. 
Her own character has been so deformed by ethical 
inconsistencies that her message on behalf of right is not 
received with the respect it intrinsically deserves. Again, 
I protest against a wrong meaning being attached to my 
words. I am not saying that the church is not as righteous 
as in former times. Purposely I am leaving such com- 
parisons out of this discussion, if for no other reasons, at 
least for this, that I have found ministers and laymen, 



174 THE MODEKN CRISIS IN EELIGION 

whenever the deficiencies of the church have been ex- 
posed, ready to apologize for her on the ground that she is 
not as corrupt and infirm as she was one or two hundred 
years ago. And when this plea is put forth hope of 
present improvement comes to an end. It is usually 
uttered with such intensity of satisfaction as indicates that 
there is back of it no deep feeling that immediate reform 
is really necessary. Therefore, I am not willing the vital 
issue should be obscured in this way by instituting useless 
comparisons. Let the church cease comparing herself 
with herself, and compare herself with what she ought to 
be and with what God's Word represents her as designed 
to be, and if she is candid, she will confess that she is very 
far from the ideal, so far as seriously to impair her moral 
influence over society. 

When a great religious community during a municipal 
election, which was preeminently ethical in its character, 
could stand apart in silence and never once by its priests 
in public lift up its voice against corruption and vice, 
society ought not to be too harshly judged if it concludes 
that this professed teacher of morals has departed from its 
vocation. When this same community also permits its 
members, without protest, to engage in Jew-baiting in 
Paris, and when it preserves discreet, though not very 
chivalrous, neutrality as Spain oppresses the Cubans and 
devastates with fire and sword the Philippines, and only 
raises its voice in remonstrance when it fears for its own 
property under the United States flag in the Archipelago, 
the busy world may be excused if it shrugs its shoulders 
and exclaims that ecclesiastical organizations are not differ- 
ent from others — more interested in their temporal pos- 
sessions than they are in the cause of liberty and justice. 

It is usually said in extenuation that the Roman Catholic 
Church is not in politics. This is an absurdity. She is 



THE ARREST OF ETHICAL PROGRESS 175 

so deeply immersed in politics that she contends for the 
restoration of her temporal power in Italy, and there 
foments civic dissensions if not actual violence. In France 
and Germany she is allied with certain political parties 
favorable to her interests, and in the United States she is 
as much a political wire-puller as elsewhere. It is true she 
is rarely in politics for ethical purposes ; but invariably for 
ecclesiastical advantages. This is not to her credit. 
Concerning her relations with earthly governments I have 
no desire to say a word. That is for her chiefs to decide 
and lies apart from the scope of this discussion. But if 
she fails in her ethical mission the whole community 
suffers, and that she does fail, notwithstanding her high 
talk, is evident and is one of the most discouraging signs 
of the times. This is not said in a hostile spirit ; but only 
that she and the community at large may perceive why 
these times of ours are morally stationary. 

Nor are Protestants blameless. They may not err in 
the same way as the Catholics, but they have their own 
shortcomings, and enough of them to impair their influ- 
ence for good and goodness. This is not a sectarian issue. 
It is not one section of the Christian world against the 
other. Both are to blame, both neglectful, both fail at 
that point where the interest of society in them begins. In 
saying this I am not saying that the type of personal 
ethical life in these religious communities is not vastly 
superior to what it is outside. I am only maintaining that 
in the aggregate it is not what it ought to be, and is not 
sufficiently distinct to be the potent factor it ought to be 
in the moral development of mankind. Why should the 
world be expected to sit at the feet of the church to learn 
from her the principles of right and to receive from her 
inspiration to holy living, when she rarely utters a word of 
condemnation against commercial greed and other abuses 



176 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

which are undermining the integrity of the country, and 
when she countenances in her members what is manifestly 
foreign to the Christian ideal. Think what it signifies 
when Rev. Dr. Rainsford is constrained to say on this 
subject : 

" The drama has fallen to terrible depths. Zangwill has 
been criticised for his opinion of the stage. Things have 
got so far in this city that plays that no young people, or, 
for that matter, old people either, ought to see, are crowded. 
Our eyes are morally astigmatic. Of one such play I 
heard of one young man of the church who said, < Well, 
it don't hurt me.' What are you going to do when a 
Christian man says that ? What has that to do with the 
question? Is he sent into the world, is he baptized, to 
save his own skin ? ' ' 

It is this " astigmatism " that now unfits the church for 
moral leadership. She is not clear in her ethical discern- 
ment. She is confused in her judgment on questions of 
right and wrong. Her intention may be well enough and 
she may desire to help mankind, but she does not always 
have singleness of eye to see the highroad of duty. She 
is perpetually stumbling. At times she adopts methods for 
securing financial aid which degrade, and every now and 
then betrays belief in the theory that the end sanctifies 
the means. Or in her internal management, for the sake 
of peace, she leans on men of no business uprightness, and 
calls on men to pray for divine guidance in grave crises 
whom she knows to be destitute of sincerity and honor. 
Meannesses are tolerated for the " sake of the cause," she 
not perceiving that a cause dependent for its support on 
meanness of any kind is not worth preserving. In some 
congregations, — let us hope their number is small — the 
moral sense is so defective, that the members may with im- 
punity attend debasing shows, may neglect church and 



THE ARREST OF ETHICAL PROGRESS m 

transact business on Sunday, may without serious fear of 
being called to account slander, backbite, and adopt in 
church elections the tricky arts of the cheap politician. 

These statements are not disclosures. They are not new 
and sensational revelations. They are matters of com- 
mon notoriety. The community is familiar with them. 
They are talked about on the streets and are the theme of 
conversation among all classes of people. In some form 
or other they find their way into the press and furnish rich 
material for the satire of essayist and novelist. It is 
because they are known and cannot be hidden that the 
moral message of the church has lost in a marked degree 
its authoritative note for the age ; and not until she realizes 
this, and "judgment begins at the house of God," have we 
reason to expect that the present impasse will end and 
ethical progress be quickened. 

Martin Luther once prayed : " Oh, my God, punish 
rather with pestilence, with all the terrible sicknesses on 
earth, with war, with anything rather than that Thou be 
silent to us." A noble petition surely; and were it the 
supplication of the people generally they would now per- 
ceive that He has been speaking to the world in the past 
and is still speaking to the race. The difficulty to-day is, 
not that God has gone dumb, but that He has few hearers. 
If we will open the ear of the soul, the " still, small voice " 
will be audible within saying : " This is the way, walk ye 
in it." 

This is not some far-fetched figure of speech to which 
there is no corresponding reality. It does not express a 
theory or even a faith — it is a fact and one that recent 
psychology has been attempting to explain. The newer 
philosophy is writing : " Reverence thyself; for in thyself 
alone is the message of God." Amiel said in his pub- 
lished Reflections : " The transference of Christianity 



178 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

from the region of history to the region of pyschology is 
the task of our epoch." And we gather from Mr. Bal- 
four * the direction of modern thought when he says : 
"Morality is discerned as a part of the social order, 
because involved in the constitution of humanity itself. 
And there the unique character of man's moral judgments 
has been clearly disengaged as the very centre and essence 
of his life : . . . and that good which he recognizes 
as having authority over him is seen to be no other than 
the reflection in his own soul of the infinite purpose which 
enspheres all our being." 

Then the " infinite purpose " is disclosed to man in the 
solitudes of his soul. " In thyself is the message of God." 
These writers may mean differently in a sense from what I 
mean when I declare that God yet talks with man. They 
may be thinking of some natural endowment, the law 
written on the heart, while I, without denying this, am 
thinking of a natural aptitude; but we all believe that 
there is or may be within that which illuminates the path of 
duty. With the form of their thought I have no present 
controversy. I am only anxious to convince men that 
others than preachers of the gospel believe that such com- 
munion with the Infinite is possible and results in clearness 
of ethical perception and in an overmastering appreciation 
of ethical obligation. 

When this is more generally apprehended, when it takes 
hold of the deeps of our being, when the church and serious 
people everywhere reverse the entreaty of the Hebrews and 
pray that God will speak with them and in them that they 
may not perish of moral sores and putrefactions, then the 
day will not tarry when righteousness will revive and when, 
as written from of old, shall be fulfilled the promise : 

1 « Foundations of Belief." 



THE ARREST OF ETHICAL PROGRESS 179 

" With righteousness shall He judge the poor, and 
reprove with equity for the meek of the earth. . . . 
And righteousness shall be the girdle of His loins, 
and faithfulness the girdle of his reins. . . . They 
shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain ; for 
the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as 
the waters cover the sea." 



VIII 
THE POSITION AND PERIL OF PROTESTANTISM 

" O foolish Galatians, who did bewitch you, before whose eyes 
Jesus Christ was openly set forth crucified? This only would I 
learn from you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law or 
by the hearing of faith ? Are ye so foolish ? Having begun in the 
Spirit are ye now perfected in the flesh ? Did ye suffer so many 
things in vain? if it be indeed in vain." — Galatians J : 1-4. 

THE "anathema" pronounced in the opening 
paragraphs of this Epistle on man or angel who 
should preach any other than Christ's gospel 
sounds peculiarly harsh proceeding from the lips of him 
who composed the most eloquent eulogy on charity extant. 
Likewise, the strong invectives employed by Christ in 
reproving the Pharisees do not appeal to us as harmoniz- 
ing with His character as incarnate love. Both teachers 
must indeed have been strangely moved to use language so 
foreign to their nature. Was this seeming contradiction 
designed to teach us that intense feeling against wrong, 
growing into fierce denunciation, is a higher mark of so- 
licitude for the well-being of mankind than the cynical 
apathy that beholds with amused contempt the slow disin- 
tegration of religious beliefs ? Better, surely, the hottest 
fires of indignant intolerance than the glacial indifference 
of liberalism, whose atmosphere is fatal to conviction in 
thought and to heroism in deed, and which, like icebergs 
in the Atlantic, generates dense fogs where unmelodious 
whistles tell shrilly of danger and of a necessary slowing 
up of the engines. For where nothing is really cherished 

180 



PEEIL OF PKOTESTANTISM 181 

as truth, every available moment will be taken in proclaim- 
ing the certainty of uncertainty, and in such a vacuum 
spiritual energy cannot be maintained, neither can spiritual 
life be begotten. 

Nevertheless, we in our day in our burning zeal for the 
just and the true — if we have it, — need not imitate apos- 
tolic example in our speech. What beings divine or 
inspired may say by virtue of their absolute knowledge we 
had better not attempt to copy. Not for us to call down 
fire from heaven, and not for us to "handle Jove's dread 
thunderbolts." Not one of us is infallible, not even the 
pope, and neither he nor we should presume to invoke 
any of the one hundred and thirty-five curses decreed by 
the Council of Trent on those who differ from us. We 
should seriously, steadfastly and stalwartly uphold the faith 
of our fathers — our faith — and be intolerant of impurity, 
of dishonesty and of insincerity and trifling with things 
sacred, without being vituperative in speech, or calling to 
our aid the imprecatory psalms. 

What roused the ire of St. Paul was the unexpected and 
sudden readiness of the Galatian Christians to depart from 
the gospel as it had been originally promulgated among 
them about seven years earlier than the date of this letter, 
and welcomed by them with every sign of high appreci- 
ation. They had allowed themselves to be bewitched; 
they were falling back on positions abandoned by them 
only a little while before ; they were turning aside from 
the true law of progress, and in their foolishness they were 
jeopardizing every spiritual advantage that had been 
gained. No wonder that he was intensely moved and 
righteously indignant, for not only was Christianity, then 
in its infancy, imperilled, but the future of religion in the 
world, which involved the moral and social happiness of 
mankind, was being recklessly compromised. 



182 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

Can it be in our age that there is reason for the renewal 
of this solicitude and need for the repetition of these re- 
monstrances? After not seven years but two thousand, 
and after four hundred years since the Reformation, can it 
be that Christian communities, particularly Protestant 
communities, which more closely than others resemble 
those of apostolic times, are being "bewitched," are for- 
getting the past, are falling into errors from which they 
were rescued by Luther, and are, not only losing their own 
distinctive character, but also imperilling the spiritual her- 
itage of unborn generations ? 

Prof. Adolf Harnack thinks that there are grounds for 
taking a discouraging view of the situation. In his 
widely circulated lectures on the subject he writes : "To 
use the language of commerce, the old Protestant house is 
still certainly a going concern, but in the course of history, 
as we know, houses have a way of degenerating." He 
traces in a masterly fashion the signs of present degeneracy 
in the reform churches, and other students have called at- 
tention to various indications that Protestant stability and 
supremacy are gravely threatened. 

I am not pessimistically inclined, and yet I admit there 
is enough in these signs and in the trend of things to 
arouse serious thought. It would be foolishness to ignore 
the tokens of decay and denounce these faithful friends 
who honestly criticise as merely prophets of evil delight- 
ing in uttering messages of evil. My own impression is 
that these danger signals are warranted, only instead of 
leading to despair they should constrain us to change our 
course. They are wholesome and needed warnings that 
should be promptly heeded, and not necessarily the omi- 
nous foreshadows of a disaster that cannot be avoided. 

Believing this, and following to a certain degree St. Paul's 
representations in my text, I desire to consider the present 



PERIL OF PROTESTANTISM 183 

Position and Peril of Protestantism 

However dark the Protestant outlook may be, it ought 
to be said, as we enter on this discussion, that it is not 
primarily due to the machinations and successes of its 
famous antagonist. There is a vague impression abroad 
that Roman Catholicism has made such progress of late as 
hopelessly to distance and almost discredit the reform faith. 
This, however, is a mistake. The increase of the Roman 
Church is purely that of birth, not of conquest and con- 
version. It has not in the last century regained a single 
principality lost in the Reformation, and in various Catho- 
lic countries its power has sensibly declined. Taken all 
over the world, it has barely held its own, if on the whole 
it has not lost ground. Let us not forget that Lamenais 
forsook the Romish communion to follow " new political 
ideals," or that Renan was driven by the unhistoric Christ 
of ecclesiology to create a sentimental Christ of romance ; 
while more recently the Abbe Bourrier, the Abbe Char- 
bonnel, the Cure of Arabaux, M. Vidalot, and a host of 
other clerics have abandoned the altars of the Papal hier- 
archy. Neither should we forget that Guibert, an author- 
ity, has stated that in France "it is becoming more and 
more difficult to fill the vacant places in the priesthood " ; 
or that Joseph Miiller has reported that 18,000 persons in 
Prussia passed during the year 1895 fr° m tne Roman 
Catholic to the Protestant fold, and that in Saxony twenty- 
five per cent, of the children of mixed marriages enter the 
latter enclosure. 

It is also frequently overlooked that the success of 
Prussia in the field against Austria, July 3, 1866, at 
Koniggratz determined the balance of political power in 
favor of the Protestants on the Continent. Nor has the 
loss of prestige been compensated by the gains made in 



184 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

England and America. With all that has been done 
through the Oxford movement and the secession of New- 
man, the Catholics of England number only a trifle over 
a million. Dr. Dorchester has shown that they are also 
relatively losing ground in Canada, and that in the United 
States the increase of Roman Catholics has not equalled 
the number of Catholic immigrants from beyond the sea. 

I am not undervaluing the significance of what the 
Roman Church has done, neither am I belittling her power. 
I am also far from advocating indifference to her encroach- 
ments, particularly when she is now consolidating her vari- 
ous societies into a compact organization for the purpose of 
securing to her larger political influence, — the one supreme 
thing, and valued by her more than any other possession, 
for which she exists and strives. But I am not prepared to 
admit, in view of these facts, that to her belongs either the 
glory or the shame for whatever of decline has overtaken 
Protestantism, or for whatever of danger now threatens its 
institutions and principles. Her own position, as shown 
by these proofs, is far from being secure and satisfactory, 
and were we admitted to her inner councils we would, I 
am sure, be startled by her own misgivings. 

A church which in her highest Conclave is dominated 
by the veto of an Austrian Emperor, whose martyred wife 
preferred exile to his royal affection ; a church that is dis- 
tracted by political intrigues in the Vatican, and while 
anxious to rule America is distrustful of Americanism in 
her clergy ; a church that has excited the hostility of the 
greatest Republic in Europe — France, and has retarded the 
unity and prosperity of Italy ; a church that has no past 
glorified by deeds of renown on behalf of liberty and en- 
lightenment, and no future free from humiliations and 
anxieties; and a church that "has had twenty centuries 
in which to establish that universal spiritual empire which 



PEEIL OF PROTESTANTISM 185 

its advocates assert to be its destiny and no such empire 
has yet been established," x is not strong enough, and never 
has been to rear an effective obstruction in the way of Prot- 
estant progress. " The great masters of modern literature, 
from Goethe until now — and who are our spiritual teach- 
ers if not they ? — are on the whole, alien from Catholicism, 
if not opposed to it. Who of us can doubt that the great 
masters are likely to remain alien from Catholicism, as the 
word has hitherto been understood ? ' ' 

Such being the case, why, then, from a church out of 
touch with the highest intellectual life of the times there 
never can have been much to fear, and she ought not to be 
held responsible for the shortcomings and failures of Prot- 
estantism. Indeed, if there is one object more pathetic- 
ally tragical than the weakness, hesitancy and decline of 
Protestantism, it is the empty and impotent pomp, parade 
and pretense of the Roman Catholic Church, proudly an- 
nouncing assumptions of supremacy founded on ancient 
fabrications, while in her dependence and feebleness she is 
courting the favor of liberty on this side of the Atlantic, 
and is quite prepared to play off Orleanist, Bourbon or 
Napoleon against republican freedom on the other. 

To understand the real peril of Protestantism we must 
consider its present position doctrinally. 

The apostle reproves the Galatians for faithlessness 
to the presentation of Christ which had commanded their 
believing homage at the beginning. He declares that Jesus 
had been openly set forth before them as the crucified One ; 
and the verb seems to mean " painted," that is, portrayed. 
They had not been taught a sentimental, emotional relig- 
ion, but a religion grounded in history and challenging in- 
quiry and thought. Consequently, he asks whether they 

1 " Quest of Faith," p. 161. Bailey Saunders. 



186 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

had received the Spirit by the works of the law or by the 
hearing, meaning probably the message of faith? Evi- 
dently hearing must have reference to some truth or teach- 
ing inculcated. As those to whom he wrote had never 
seen the Lord actually nailed to the tree we must under- 
stand this language as we do the phrase " preaching Christ 
and Him crucified," as denoting a doctrinal conception. 
His complaint is that the Gentiles had lost sight of this 
conception, and were substituting for it what he terms " the 
works of the law." What he really means by the latter 
expression we need not discuss here. Let it suffice that 
he condemned the tendency to belittle the intellectual ele- 
ment in the life of the church, clear ideas, tenaciously held 
regarding divine things being vital to her existence. 

His solicitude is as fully warranted now as then. Pro- 
fessor Harnack has pointed out that a notable decline has 
taken place in appreciation for what used to be regarded 
as vital to Protestantism — The Theologia Sacra. What he 
means by the phrase is, that, whereas at the beginning 
there were only prophecy and spiritual teaching, on the 
passing of the age of inspiration, a coherent and systematic 
effort was made to embody the content of revelation in 
something like dogmatic forms. These forms were related 
and were named theology, and the theology was termed 
"sacred" as it was professedly derived from the Bible, 
mainly if not exclusively. Before the rise of the Lutheran 
Reformation doctrinal decline had become a marked fea- 
ture of the Roman Church. While many learned mediaeval 
doctors yet cherished what has been called "the supreme 
science" it had very generally been thrust aside and had 
given place to superstitious rites, to childish legends and 
worldly policies. Theology had fallen into disrepute. The 
vast and glorious truths of revelation were rarely discussed, 
and in proportion as light died out in the school and pulpit 



PERIL OF PROTESTANTISM 187 

skepticism increased, corruption and violence spread, and 
Dr. Dollinger with a scholar's frankness acknowledges that 
a reformation was imperatively demanded. 

The Reformation came in due time and it began in 
the domain of thought. Old Protestantism reenthroned 
theology, and seasons of spiritual refreshing, of moral 
cleansing and evangelistic conquests followed. The Bible 
was translated and given to the people ; the great doctrine 
of justification by faith was proclaimed from Rome to 
Wittenberg, from Wittenberg to Zurich, and from Zurich 
throughout the Catholic world; and confessions were 
drawn up and the preparation of systems of divinity occu- 
pied the attention of the most learned and consecrated 
men. I am not approving these systems as though they 
were all that could be desired, for I believe that every 
age ought to shape and write its own theology. I am 
only pointing out the fact that they characterized the 
earlier stages of the Reformation, that they produced a 
radical change in the religious and ethical life of the age, 
and that probably at no time will there be a spiritual 
quickening apart from intense intellectual activity. 

This I am inclined to believe the Protestantism of to-day 
needs to re-learn. What took place in the church before the 
memorable upheaval in the sixteenth century, and earlier 
in Galatia, has been repeating itself, and with the same 
deadly results. The Theologia Sacra has lost its hold on 
the world and measurably on the pulpit. There are 
clergymen who pride themselves on not being doctrinal 
preachers, and while scientists are striving to be more and 
more specific, synthetic and philosophical, they apparently 
desire to be less definite, constructive and comprehensive. 
Much of a vague and flowery kind is written of the " Christ 
that is to be," of " creedless piety," " advanced thought " 
— usually a misnomer, as it ought rather to be phrased 



188 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

"advanced feeling" — and "light and sweetness." On 
secular topics most of these pulpits have much to say and 
to say dogmatically, but on their special business the 
tongue falters and hesitates and weakly attempts to hide 
the uncertainty of indifference by declaiming against 
theology. 

Not a few members of the Church have drifted into the 
same untenable position. They also prefer ministers who 
refrain from doctrine, and who occupy themselves and 
others with "light and sweetness," and apparently more 
with "sweetness" than "light." While they are thus 
deluding themselves, are imagining that the outside world 
has been stricken with intellectual paralysis, and that it 
can be won to the support of a Christianity that ignores the 
great mysteries of the faith, sanctuaries are neglected, and 
literature disposes of the grave issues which it treats so 
superficially, if at all, in this abrupt and heroic fashion : 

"The government of the world must not be considered 
as determined by an extra-mundane intelligence, but one 
immanent in the cosmical forces and their relations." 

" Science has gradually taken all the positions of the 
childish belief of the peoples, it has snatched thunder and 
lightning from the hands of the gods. The stupendous 
powers of the Titans of the olden times have been grasped 
by the fingers of men." 

" I find no hint throughout the universe 
Of good or ill, of blessings or of curse ; 

I find alone, necessity supreme : 
The world rolls round forever like a mill, 
It grinds out death and life, and good and ill ; 
It has no purpose, heart, or mind or will." 

Thus while many of us in the pulpit speak slightingly of 
dogmatics, the outside community is slowly elaborating a 



PERIL OF PROTESTANTISM 189 

theology of its own, and not until we abandon our mis- 
leading animadversions and return to the example of the 
first reformers will Protestantism resume its hold on the at- 
tention and allegiance of the nations. 

Already Romanism has mastered this lesson. Indeed, 
she began to learn it very soon after Luther's appearance. 
However she may have neglected theology in times im- 
mediately preceding the Reformation, she has long ago 
rectified her error. She is now dogmatic and precise in 
her beliefs. Of late she has reproved Protestants for their 
critical attitude towards the Bible, and has become the 
warm defender of inspiration. Nor has she hesitated to 
impose new articles of faith on her children, such as the 
Immaculate Conception, and her particular interpretations 
of scientific facts. Recall the controversy between Cardi- 
nal Vaughan and Professor Mivart. When Protestants are 
definite and constructive, the world frequently describes 
them as bigoted and narrow. But it keeps mute in pres- 
ence of the greater rigidity and inflexibility of Romanism. 
Yet she compels her members to subscribe to the doctrine 
of the mass, to the infallibility of the pope, and to her 
official views of the universe. 

Why Protestants should be regarded as narrow because 
they demand subscription to the Divinity of Christ and the 
Atonement, and the Catholics broad because they maintain 
the vicegerency of the pope, I defy any one to explain. 
The difference between them really is that the dogmas 
emphasized by Rome do nothing for the invigoration of pop- 
ular thought, while those that have been held by Protestantism 
have developed strength of mind and weight of character. 
To depart from them, to fail to discuss them, to leave the 
impression that they are unimportant, is to foster a weak- 
ness fatal to the progress of faith. Moreover, it is my 
opinion from all I can learn, that Rome is more dogmatic 



190 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

now than at any previous period. She may not enter into 
the larger questions of theology, but she has something to 
be believed, and it is believed, hence she is of greater 
power than when she was dominated by the genius of Leo 
X, and the aesthetic, humanistic party. She has learned 
her lesson. The reform churches seem to be unlearning 
theirs, and the more they eloquently talk about liberality, 
and all things being equally unimportant, the more will 
they lose their grip on virile humanity, for, once convince 
the world that there is really nothing to be believed, and 
the world will take them at their word, and will believe 
nothing, and do nothing. 

I am not claiming that theology ought to remain station- 
ary, or that as it was it can longer be entirely accepted. 
But I need not remind you that the difference in effect of 
no theology and an enlightened theology is very great. 
Ought we not to have the courage of our dissent from the 
past, and re-write theology in the terms of modern life and 
of enlightened criticism of the New Testament text? 
What I protest against is the seeming impression that we 
can get along without a theology. This is a mistake. We 
will either have one framed by atheism or fanaticism, or by 
the consecrated scholarship of the church. At present, 
men argue that the church seems to have no distinct 
message. She appears to crave applause for being liberal 
rather than for being thoughtful and faithful. In these 
circumstances they infer that there cannot be anything very 
wrong in their being indifferent themselves, or much to be 
censured in their worldly temper. This is a peril. Un- 
less it is realized, Protestantism will either remain station- 
ary or retrograde. She is the religion of thought, of intel- 
lect, of dogmatic conviction, and she will slowly disin- 
tegrate unless she is true to her essential character. 

Nor will the adoption of an historic creed to be repeated 



PERIL OF PROTESTANTISM 191 

each Sunday serve to avert the danger. It is not dead 
formularies that will save Protestantism, but living, present 
day thought. Harnack has called attention to the existing 
anomaly — that with the depreciation of theology there has 
arisen a new appreciation of creeds, particularly those 
named "Apostles" and "Nicene." Dr. Schaff claims 
that they are to-day the common doctrinal bond of union 
between the three great branches of Christendom — the 
Greek, the Latin and the Evangelical. They are read in 
congregations that are neither prelatical nor ritualistic, but 
as far as I can judge they fail to revive religious activity. 
The alleged power of these formulas to unify is also dis- 
credited by the fact that they are alike acknowledged by 
the divided church, and the church remains divided. 
The position of old Protestantism, as set forth by Harnack, 
was that creeds were temporary and must be prepared to 
undergo alteration with increased light on the Bible. They 
protested against finalities, at least as binding, for they 
held that these symbols should be believed, not merely pro- 
claimed. But to-day the Apostles' Creed is repeated by 
multitudes whose mental attitute towards it is not of faith. 
Some go through it without any suspicion of its meaning, 
while others join in it as a condescension to the weakness 
of the unemancipated, and yet others read into it their 
peculiar views. This course is fatal to mental honesty and 
mental vigor. By substituting it for theological study and 
discussion, nothing is evidently gained in the way of unity, 
and much is lost in the way of conviction and ingenuous- 
ness. When society sees that the reform churches are 
trifling both with the word and the thought, the inference 
will be swift that they can no longer be trusted, and they 
will be treated with increasing disrespect. 

The comprehension of the peril of Protestantism calls 
for inquiry into its present position spiritually. 



192 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

In the text St. Paul uses two terms that are of frequent 
occurrence in the epistles — " spirit," " flesh." They seem 
to derive their essential meaning from the heavenly and 
earthly sides of man's nature. There is the " mind of the 
flesh," and the "works of the flesh," and "the carnal" 
or fleshly ordinances. The Galatian Christians ought to 
have outgrown these things. They had been renewed by 
the Holy Ghost, and were in a position to judge the rela- 
tive unimportance of the formal and objective religion from 
which they had been delivered. Instead of this through 
the influence of false teachers, they were disposed to return 
to the narrow, carnal system, imagining it possible that 
having begun in the spirit they could be perfected in the 
flesh, as though a student in college were to expect mental 
development by resuming his place in the common school, 
or an advanced musician and artist were to abandon Wag- 
ner or Turner and go back to piano forte finger exercises 
or elementary lines in drawing. St. Paul rudely dispels 
the illusion. He characterizes those who hold it as " fool- 
ish " and as "bewitched," for they ought to have discerned 
with greater clearness the true law of progress — "first that 
which is natural and afterwards that which is spiritual." 
This law the Gentiles were reversing, they were really ex- 
alting the body above the soul, circumcision above renewal, 
bondage above freedom, and the worship of the Temple, 
with its gross limitations, above the worship portrayed by 
Jesus, which needs neither Jerusalem nor Gerizim and calls 
for no smoking altar, no bedizened priest and no bleeding 
sacrifice. 

The original Protestantism, like primitive Christianity, 
was preeminently spiritual. It was not at first inclined to- 
wards rites, outward observances and dependence on the 
"arm of flesh." Having broken with Romanism, it had 
no desire to imitate Romanism, neither did it care to copy 



PERIL OF PROTESTANTISM 193 

the government or profess the peculiar Catholicism of Ro- 
manism. Worship was simplified, the mass was rejected, 
the priest was set aside, and the reformers began to live the 
life that is hid with Christ in God. Doubtless the conscious- 
ness of this divine life became the source of power, and 
made the Luthers, Melancthons, Carlstadts, the Hubmey- 
ers and their sympathizers, the men they were. They 
trusted God and their hearts throbbed with a sense of over- 
coming strength through Him. Neither the works of the 
flesh in the form of state or social patronage, nor in the 
guise of pompous hierarchies appealed to them. They 
took God at His word and according to His promise, as 
Luther did at Worms, and they were mighty because they 
could do no other. With Paul Gerhardt they were accus- 
tomed to say, " Is God for me, then let all else oppose 
me!" and they freely declared — "The Word alone must 
doit." 

This was the first stage. There were days of conflict 
and conquest. Then Protestantism had not learned to 
compromise, to talk softly, and walk prudently, to measure 
nicely her sentences, and with "bated breath and whisper- 
ing humbleness" to announce her message in the ears of 
princes and kings, or secretly proclaim her emancipating 
social gospel for the joy of peasants and craftsmen. She 
was free, independent, outspoken, at times a little rough, 
but always brave-hearted and ready for the bloody strug- 
gles that lay before her in the thirty years war and in all 
the monstrous persecutions which decimated the Walden- 
ses and almost crushed the Huguenots. There were fierce 
moments when she retaliated in kind and " thinking of the 
slaughtered saints " on the Italian hills, returned blow for 
blow. One half her energy in these days, a tithe of her 
conviction, devotion and downright way of maintaining 
her cause, minus every element of coarseness or violence, 



194 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

would restore her and more than restore her to the con- 
fidence and admiration of the world. 

Unhappily in this last stage of Protestantism there are 
dilettante adherents who go in for roundabout methods, 
who are unwilling to meet grave issues in a straightforward 
way, who falter in their speech when called on for a direct 
confession of their faith, who entertain the strangest and 
most ridiculous dread of Romanism, and who are so color- 
less, timid and neutral in their faith that the service they 
render is too perfunctory to be of any social or other kind 
of value. Were it otherwise, were they as soulful and he- 
roic as were the early reformers, the Reformation would be 
more like what it was at the beginning and in a little while 
the earth would be filled with the renown of its beneficent 
victories. 

Failing in this, and having declined from confidence in 
the Spirit, Protestants, as foolish as the Galatians before 
them, are returning to the works of the flesh. German 
students have been pointing out a tendency among non- 
Romanists in various lands towards sacerdotalism and 
priestcraft. As the primitive disciples to whom the apostle 
wrote were retracing their steps and going back to Jewish 
ordinances and Jewish ecclesiasticisms, so now these de- 
scendants of the reformers are retreating from the high 
spirituality of their fathers and are imagining that a partial 
return to sacramentarianism, with its showy impressiveness 
and hierarchical government, with its discipline, would re- 
store their waning power and prestige. 

Their expectation I am convinced in every respect is 
vain. The thoughtful world has outgrown these sensuous 
substitutes for personal religion. It may look with wonder 
on stately processionings, and bow before ecclesiastical 
magnates, and even submit to superstitious ceremonies, but 
its wonder is not unmixed with scorn, its reverence not un- 



PERIL OF PROTESTANTISM 195 

mixed with mockery, and its submission with inward shame 
and rebellion. Has it never occurred to these admirers of 
Romanism, that if the Papal system at its best and in its 
home in Italy, Austria and France is as unpopular as it is, 
and fails as it does to command the respectful homage of 
thoughtful people, we cannot reasonably expect its imita- 
tion to avert the religious crisis in England and America, 
and make Christianity more acceptable to the community ? 

The unchurched multitudes are not clamoring for re- 
vived splendor in worship, or for sacerdotal and sacramen- 
tarian mysteries. No, the craving for pomp, show, high 
altars and decorations is mainly confined to the members 
and particularly to the clergy of some Protestant churches. 
It is a movement within religious circles, and only to a lim- 
ited extent without. The world has no special desire for 
it ; and many in the churches favor it because it gratifies 
their mediaeval tastes — and, then, it is so much easier to go 
through certain priestly acts than it is to teach, and to in- 
spire by personal character and labor. But whoever relies 
on these performances to improve the present religious sit- 
uation is the victim of infatuation. It is impossible that 
any great gain can come from them. We may wrangle 
about "orders" and " successions," we may talk sepul- 
chrally about " altars " and the " tremendous mystery of 
the Eucharist," we may turn our backs on the people when 
we pray, and we may cross ourselves and keep holy-days — 
but it will all be relatively useless. 

It is not possible to reverse the law that is involved in 
the apostle's reproof. Having commenced in the spirit, 
Protestants no more than Galatians can be perfected in the 
flesh ; they can neither perfect their own religious life by 
going back to what has been long ago superseded, nor per- 
fect their influence over the outside world. 

In the meanwhile they are imperilling the Protestant 



196 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

cause. These cheap and garish attempts at catholicizing 
the reform faith are construed by observers as evidences of 
waning confidence in its vigor. They are looked on as at- 
tempts by paint and draperies to conceal the actual cracks 
in the walls and the dilapidation in roof-trees and ceilings 
of the old house. Catholic priests are smiling at these ef- 
forts, and point to them as signs that the Protestant build- 
ing is in the final stages of decay, and use them as proof 
that the time has arrived for all who desire religion to re- 
turn to the so-called mother church. The large intelligent 
element among both the classes and the masses regard this 
singular mimicry, this dubious parody and paraphrase of a 
superstitious sacerdotalism long ago discredited and re- 
jected, as a confession of weakness and despair. The new 
era has been searching for a religion abreast with its intel- 
ligence, veracious, real, actual, not given over to myths, 
legends and the glittering robes and sacred sumptuosities 
of ancient Paganism, and it politely derides a policy that 
bears a semblance to a revival of that which the clearer 
thought of humanity has discarded. 

Yet further and finally to perceive the peril of Protes- 
tantism it is necessary that we view its present position his- 
torically. 

The apostle is surprised that the Galatians should so 
soon have forgotten the past. "Did ye suffer so many 
things in vain?" is his pathetic inquiry. Do you no 
longer remember what it cost in suffering, in heroic self- 
denial, and in the loss of goods and social standing that 
the faith of Christ might crown your lives with blessing ? 
If you have no vivid recollection of these things then your 
conduct is explicable. Little store will we lay by anything 
that is taken as a matter of course, the price by which it 
was secured being unappreciated and its intrinsic worth 
being underestimated. Naturally if slight importance is 



PERIL OF PROTESTANTISM 197 

attached to sacrifices, not much will be thought of the 
benefits they gained, and these benefits will be held loosely 
and will be tossed aside carelessly when the time of testing 
comes. 

To-day many Protestants, if not Protestantism itself, are 
in a forgetful mood. They seem to have become oblivious 
to the past, not only to its terrible conflicts, but to its les- 
sons. In their infatuation they are playing with sharp- 
edged tools and apparently do not recall the days when 
they cut, slashed and slew soul as well as body, nor think 
that they are capable of doing so again. To all such Prot- 
estants may I not earnestly address the apostle's remon- 
strance : " Have ye, and your sires suffered in the days 
gone by so many things in vain ? " Or, to vary the ques- 
tion, " From what you know of the past and of the sacri- 
fices offered for the triumph of Protestantism, is that for 
which this faith stands worth being transmitted to the 
future?" 

There is a considerable number of extremists in reform 
prelatical communions who have grown dissatisfied with 
the distinction — "Protestant" — and who would substitute 
for it the name " Catholic." They seem pitiably anxious 
to be counted a section of the Greek and Latin hierarchies 
whose crimes against human freedom are sufficient to ren- 
der them both odious. Has the story of the Lollards and 
the Huguenots been effaced from memory, and the recent 
atrocities committed by orthodox Russia against Hebrews 
and Roscalnics (Nonconformists), Stundists, Chlysty and 
others been so easily forgotten ? If not, why so eager to 
appear one with them by renouncing the great name 
" Protestant," associated as it is with the march of freedom, 
the emancipation of the intellect, the progress of enlighten- 
ment and the development of material prosperity ? 

I have not the least desire to disparage the real signifi- 



198 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

cance of the term " Catholic." It ought to be understood, 
however, that it is not a New Testament expression ap- 
plied at the beginning to the apostolic church, and the fact 
ought not to be overlooked that it has acquired in the 
course of the centuries a parochial and sectarian meaning. 
It now stands for the "Roman" variety of Christianity, a 
word of narrowing restriction, limiting the word " Cath- 
olic ' ' which it qualifies, and hence the plea that it ought 
to be resumed for the sake of unifying Christendom, falls 
to the ground. Where it is assumed there prevails the bit- 
terest hostility to all forms of the faith that differ and dis- 
sent from the Roman. Instead of unifying it divides, and 
I fear were our Episcopal contemporaries, who for many 
reasons are worthy exceptional honor, to succeed in 
adopting it the change would not draw them into closer 
relations with the non-prelatical bodies, and would not 
deepen in them the spirit of fraternity and liberality. 

Of graver significance the impression that has spread 
within Anglican circles, since the defection of Newman, 
that the world is mind-weary, and that intellectual rest on 
matters of faith can only be obtained in the bosom of the 
Roman Church. A few hundreds of men and women have 
consequently drifted from the Anglican fold, and probably 
there are others hovering on the border-land between High 
Churchism and thoroughgoing Romanism. As we recall 
certain pages of history this desire to be rid of the respon- 
sibility of thinking is quite anomalous. There passes be- 
fore our eyes a long procession of martyr-heroes, of philos- 
ophers, interpreters, scientists, who endured trials of mock- 
ings and scourgings, moreover of bonds, imprisonment and 
death that they might preserve intact the sacred independ- 
ence of mind. How strange it is that in this free age, 
largely created by these devoted sufferers, there should ap- 
pear those who have so far forgotten all that these heroes 



PERIL OF PROTESTANTISM 199 

stood for as to be anxious to resume the bonds which they 
proudly cast from them. 

In extenuation the reply is made, that Protestantism is 
fatiguing and repose can only be obtained by listening to 
the infallible voice at Rome. But why not listen to the 
infallible voice from heaven ? If these mentally exhausted 
friends will have as much confidence in Christ as they 
have in the Pope, and will as reverently study His words 
as they do the encyclicals of his holiness — and it requires 
more strained attention and acumen to understand the 
various and often contradictory pronunciamentos of the 
Vatican than to interpret and comprehend the messages 
from worlds invisible — they will experience peace enough 
and will at the same time not abjure the rightful sover- 
eignty of intellect. 

I admit my absolute lack of sympathy with the souls 
that long to hand over the sceptre of thought and conscience 
to the guidance of a church that has been as mercurial as 
any other ; that always adapts itself with skillful oblivious- 
ness to what it has in one place taught, as in Spain, when 
it is necessary to espouse a different teaching in another, 
as in America ; and that is as frequently disturbed by ec- 
clesiastical discussions and internal dissensions and differ- 
ences as the humblest and least pretentious body in Chris- 
tendom. It is cowardly to shirk responsibility for your 
belief. Nor can it be in reality avoided, for responsibility 
is incurred in handing over your mind to another, and 
after all is it not nobler to keep it under your own control ? 
Its restfulness may not be as undisturbed, but its freedom 
will elevate and more than compensate for lost repose. 
Besides, what right has any one to seek mental quiet and 
inactivity? Civilization has been developed through agi- 
tation, stress and strain of mind as well as of body; and 
the Protestant faith, in particular, can never hold its own 



200 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

or advance if the right of private judgment is vacated and 
its exercise in things most sacred is suspended or aban- 
doned. 

In addition to this, there are signs that not a few Prot- 
estants are dissatisfied with the simple form of church gov- 
ernment under which they live, and would like an organi- 
zation of a more kingly pattern, less democratic and inde- 
pendent. The Episcopate has been growing in favor, and 
has gained serious attention in various quarters because of 
its claim to historicity. Much is said of a " historic epis- 
copate" and of "holy orders," the possession of which, 
however, is promptly denied to our Episcopal friends by 
the Church of Rome. Nor is this ambition restricted to 
the clergy. It is shared by many laymen ; for it is another 
paradox in modern religious life that laymen in prelatical 
bodies are taking a larger part than formerly in the direc- 
tion of affairs. Democracy advances, and yet some repre- 
sentatives of the people are themselves apparently anxious 
for a monarchical ecclesiastical administration. Probably 
the two tendencies will act on each other and the final re- 
sults may not be wholly undesirable. 

Nevertheless, there is an immediate cause of apprehen- 
sion. This exaltation of the church, this accentuation of 
apostolic descent, this mystical speech about sacraments 
and the logical inferences from the importance attached to 
the validity of orders reaching even to the soul's salvation, 
are raising more questions and creating more doubts than 
can be met. Instead of these teachings leading to the 
Episcopal or other prelatical reform church, they prepare 
the way for the increase of Romanism. In other words, 
when they are made prominent, not as a matter of taste 
and propriety, but as revealing what is indispensable to a 
church, and without which there is no church, and prob- 
ably no salvation out of the church, Protestants simply 



PERIL OF PROTESTANTISM 201 

educate their hearers for membership in the Roman 
Catholic communion. 

This is the imminent peril, and it can only be 
averted by surrendering what is untenable and without 
foundation in the assumptions involved in this ecclesiastical 
conception. That there may be good and weighty reasons 
for the preference being given to an Episcopal form of 
government over that of Congregationalism I have no 
desire to dispute. That they do not prevail with many 
Christians is really of no vital concern. But when the 
authority of God is claimed for the system, and when it is 
so articulated and elaborated as to unchurch some millions 
of godly souls, and when it is taken so seriously as to 
alienate people from the Protestant faith, then its fallacies 
ought to be exposed and its pretensions be explicitly denied 
and refuted. 

There is undoubtedly an " historic Episcopacy" dating 
somewhere from the middle of the third century ; but there 
is also an " historic Independency," older by far, and 
never entirely obliterated. There is no evidence in the 
New Testament and no reason in the nature of things for 
holding to a theory which materializes religion, demanding 
channels for divine grace which may at any time be 
fatally and irreparably destroyed by the failure to transmit 
some magical chrism in ordination. Scholars, like Har- 
nack of Berlin, Wernle of Basel and Hatch and Ramsey 
of Oxford, whatever their preference may be as to forms 
of church government, are authorities for the statement 
that the Roman Catholic idea has no real basis in apostolic 
literature. 

A volume has just appeared on " The Church and the 
Ministry in the Early Centuries," from the pen of T. M. 
Lindsay, D. D., an able and learned man, confirming 
substantially this view. The available evidence, the result 



202 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

of the latest inquiries, will be found in the pages of this 
book, and it corroborates the Protestant position abun- 
dantly. He denies "that catholicity must find visible ex- 
pression in a uniformity of organization, of ritual, of 
worship, even of formulated creed." Concerning the 
continuity of the church he writes : "Its basis is a real 
succession of the generations of faithful followers of their 
Lord and Master," and he quotes approvingly the saying 
of Ignatius : " Where Jesus Christ is, there is the whole 
church. It is in this One Body, present in every Christian 
Society, that our Lord has placed His ' gifts ' or charismata, 
which enable the church to perform its divine functions." 
He logically maintains from these postulates that the 
authority of office-bearers is delegated by the Christian 
people, and he asks, "Why not? May the Holy Spirit 
not use the membership of the church as His instrument ? ' ' 
Further he declares that the church is a Fellowship — " a 
United Fellowship, a Visible Fellowship, a Fellowship 
with an Authority bestowed upon it by its Lord, and a 
Sacerdotal Fellowship whose every member has the right 
of direct access to the throne of God, bringing with him 
the sacrifices of himself, of his praise and of his confession." 
This is Protestantism. This is the New Testament. 
This is history. Without challenging the wisdom or pro- 
priety of deviating from the New Testament ideal of a 
church, I sincerely believe, in the interests of Protestantism, 
we are bound to make clear that the Papal and Higli 
Church theory is purely an ambitious fabrication without 
the least semblance of binding authority. Just discrimi- 
nation on this point will encourage our people, having be- 
gun in the spirit, to continue in the spirit, and having 
sacrificed for the triumph of the faith, to adhere to it — 
church and all — lest the sacrifices should be in vain, and 
Protestantism suffer loss. 



PERIL OF PROTESTANTISM 203 

The religion of the future depends on the Protestantism 
of to-day. If the world preserves any type of Christianity 
whatever, it will be that of Protestantism. The type may 
be modified by increasing light and reflection, but in its 
essential character it will prevail. Romanism is too 
archaic, rococo and mediaeval to fit into modern thought 
and modern civilization. It is even now out of place, and 
later on in this twentieth century it will be looked on as a 
spiritual aberration, and a curious survival of the egregious 
superstitions of antiquity. As schools multiply, as intelli- 
gence spreads, and as the masses come to perceive that 
Romanism has been formally sustained by the privileged 
classes for the sake of keeping the lower orders in sub- 
jection, there will be a very general rejection of its arrogant 
claims. 

When the inevitable falling away occurs will Christianity 
perish, or will it be saved from further catastrophe by the 
strength, enlightenment and moral elevation of Protes- 
tantism? That question can only be answered by the 
spirit, ardor, and devotion of her children to-day. If they 
are unconcerned for the future, if they are so deeply 
plunged in money-getting and in amusements as to have no 
special interest in their churches, if they have not energy 
enough to attend public worship, and if they create the 
impression by their languidness and lack of liberality and 
enterprise that their faith has no real grip on mind or con- 
science, why then, when Romanism crashes to its ruin, its 
rival will disappear as well, swallowed up in the vortex of 
world-wide unbelief. 



IX 

THE CHRISTIANITY OF CHRIST 

" I am the way, and the truth, and the life." — John 14: 6. 

IT seems strange at this late day that a learned pro- 
fessor of Church History should consider it necessary 
to discuss the question: "What is Christianity?" 
Have the followers of our Lord for centuries been working 
in the dark, and are they still in doubt as to the character, 
the meaning and the scope of the religion they are urging 
on the attention of mankind ? The presumption is, unless 
Dr. Adolf Harnack has lectured in vain, that something 
like this has been their unhappy plight, and continues to be 
so still. 

The professor in his "Preliminary" address gives an 
idea of the painful uncertainty in which his subject is 
involved. He says, for substance, that some people hold 
primitive Christianity to have been akin to Buddhism, 
ascetical and pessimistic ; while others insist that it is an 
optimistic religion, a higher phase of Judaism ; and yet 
others declare that it is no such thing and ought to be 
regarded as " a blossom on the tree of Hellenism." Nor 
do differences end here. There is one class who teach 
that the " metaphysical system which was developed out 
of the gospel is its real kernel " ; another who reject with 
scorn the idea that Christianity has anything to do with 
philosophy, and has only to do with feeling, suffering, 
humanity ; and a final class of critics who affirm that its 
genius is essentially " economic " and that it was "in its 

204 



THE CHRISTIANITY OF CHRIST 205 

origin nothing more than a social movement and Christ 
a social deliverer, the deliverer of the oppressed lower 
classes." 

The professor, likewise, notes how some persons have 
come to identify the ideas of men as widely apart as Tolstoi 
and Nietzsche with the deeper significance of Christianity, 
and in the course of his discussion shows how differently 
its nature has been interpreted by Catholicism and Protes- 
tantism. He adds to his review the reflection that " the 
impression which these contradictory opinions convey is 
disheartening; the confusion seems hopeless. How can 
we take it amiss of any one, if, after trying to find out how 
the question stands, he gives it up ? " 

Other brilliant men have been equally concerned for 
clearer and more uniform conceptions of the Christian re- 
ligion. While not discussed from Harnack's point of 
view, nor avowedly pursuing a line of inquiry identical 
with his, nevertheless, the "Apostolic Age" of Weiz- 
sacker, the " Contribution to the History of Primitive 
Christian Theology " of Pfleiderer, the " Beginnings of 
Christianity" of Wernle, and the "Church and the Min- 
istry in the Early Centuries" of Lindsay, are all closely 
related to the subject he has treated so lucidly. The 
perusal of these volumes and others akin to them is simply 
bewildering in effect, and to some extent explains the rise 
of the numerous religious illusions with which this age has 
been afflicted. Nearly all can read if they cannot think ; 
and discovering the welter and confusion in which the 
nature of Christianity is enveloped, they feel free to define 
it according to their own lawless and vagrant mental ram- 
blings and frenzies. Hence the marvellous increase in fa- 
natical sects and stupendous pious frauds which are 
rapidly driving multitudes into Agnosticism or the mad- 
house. Carlyle wrote sixty-four years ago : 



206 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

" In these distracted times, when the Religious Princi- 
ple, driven out of most churches, either lies unseen in the 
hearts of good men, looking and longing and silently work- 
ing there towards some new Revelation ; or else wanders 
homeless over the world, like a disembodied soul seeking 
its terrestrial organization, — into how many strange shapes 
of Superstition and Fanaticism, does it not tentatively and 
errantly cast itself ! The higher Enthusiasm of man's 
nature is for the while without Employment ; yet does it 
continue indestructible, unweariedly active, and work 
blindly in the great chaotic deep ; thus Seat after Seat, and 
Church after Church, bodies itself forth and melts again 
into a new metamorphosis. ' ' ' 

The capitals are his, the italics mine. Not sure as to the 
real character of Christianity, and quite sure that wise and 
scholarly men are similarly uncertain, the untrammelled 
religious principle, and often something that is neither re- 
ligious nor principled, imparts to it a character of its own 
devising, and the world is afflicted on the one hand with 
Christian Science, on the other with Dowieism — the one 
imperilling health and life, the other jeopardizing sanity and 
personal freedom — and with many additional erratic de- 
partures from the standards of reason and ethics. More 
startling, even, than the forms which these aberrations as- 
sume is the readiness with which they command converts, 
and the rapidity with which they spread. Nor should it 
be forgotten that the largest part of their adherents come 
from the ranks of the churches. It is not as a rule the world 
that supplies adherents to these new, nondescript sects, 
neither do their leaders seek converts to any great extent 
from the ungodly classes of society. Their appeal is 
mainly to professors of religion, and their success raises the 

1 Quoted by Harnack. 



THE CHRISTIANITY OF CHRIST 207 

very serious question why disciples of Christ, most of them 
of mature years, are so easily prevailed on to forsake their 
faith. 

Evidently they are dissatisfied or they would not abandon 
what they presumably have treasured as a sacred possession. 
They have not found what they think they ought to find in 
the churches. The conception of Christianity in most of 
them is so vague, so indistinct, and in others is so neutral 
and colorless, and there is so little of assurance about any- 
thing in the majority of them, that not a few men and 
women with their intense longing for reasonable definite - 
ness, and for specific hopes, aims and duties, are ready to 
go anywhere and adopt almost anything, if their yearnings 
can be met, preferring to fly to ills they know not of 
than to endure the ills they have — the very reverse of 
Shakespeare's reasoning. 

Carlyle is right in his diagnosis of the evil, and is only 
wrong in his phraseology. " The religious principle " has 
not been driven out of the churches, but clear views as to 
the genius and character of Christianity have not been en- 
tertained for many years, if they ever have been as care 
fully matured and enforced as they should have been. 
Haze, fog, cloudiness, which have filled the atmosphere 
with chill and dreariness, have prevailed, and have suc- 
ceeded in developing unrest and in driving out many amia- 
able, though perhaps not over-wise people, in quest of what 
has not been supplied by their own denomination. This 
phenomenon ought to be treated seriously, not flippantly. 
Some among us may count it not a small matter, that we 
are being, notwithstanding our eloquent talk about union, 
broken up and splintered more and more, and give occa- 
sion for a thoughtful writer to predict that the people in the 
future will be drawn to the "moral kindliness and pictur- 
esque organization and venerable traditions of the Roman 



208 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

Catholic Church," and that they "who do not follow the 
main current will probably take up with weird science de- 
nouncing sects and of the faith- healing type, or with such 
pseudo-scientific gibberish as theosophy." * The possi- 
bility of such a sad anti-climax after centuries given to en- 
lightenment and religious progress, is absolutely appalling 
and sickening. Yet I fear it is not taken as gravely by many 
leaders as it ought to be, and while they fold their hands 
the drift continues towards hopeless confusion and chaos. 

To avert further divisions and alienations, it is impera- 
tive that a comprehensive and exact answer should be 
given to the question — What is Christianity? — and that 
the answer should exert a definitive and molding influence 
on the Christianity of to-day. 

Light on this inquiry is thrown by the recent volume 
from the pen of Prof. J. Estlin Carpenter of Oxford, on 
"The Bible in the Nineteenth Century," in which occurs 
this statement : 

" To us Christianity is often something abstract and im- 
personal. In one aspect it is a great historical generaliza- 
tion. But the early believers spoke of Christ, and they 
thought of a person, not of a movement. To them Chris- 
tianity was a life, not an organization, or a tendency, or 
the impalpable spirit of an age. They looked upon the 
changes which Christ had wrought, and they saw in them 
a mighty manifestation of the moral and spiritual forces 
which held the world together, which gave consistency to 
the outward universe and shaped the destinies of history. ' ' 2 

This definition gathered from a careful study of New 
Testament literature points to a growing impression, which 
is further strengthened and illumined by Harnack's answer 
to the question before us. He says : 

1 " Anticipations," by Mr. H. G. Wells. 2 p age 42^ 



THE CHRISTIANITY OF CHRIST 209 

" The Christian religion is something simple and sub- 
lime ; it means one thing and one thing only : Eternal 
Life in the midst of time, by the strength and under the 
eyes of God. It is no ethical or social arcanum for the 
preservation or improvement of things generally. To make 
what it has done for civilization and human progress the 
main question, and to determine the value by the answer, 
is to do it violence at the start. Goethe once said, ' Man- 
kind is always advancing, and man always remains the 
same.' It is to man that religion pertains, to man, as one 
who in the midst of all change and progress himself never 
changes. Or as Augustine has it, * Thou God hast made 
us for Thyself, and our heart is restless until it finds rest in 
Thee.' " J 

These teachers represent the trend of modern cultured 
thought on the subject of this sermon. It is of interest to 
observe what they exclude from their conception of Chris- 
tianity. They will not allow that it is primarily an organi- 
zation, or an economical social movement, or the impalpable 
spirit of an age. In explicit terms they both represent 
Christianity as being preeminently a life. Harnack calls 
it, Eternal Life in the midst of time. But what is meant 
by the phrase ? The definition is striking. It appeals to 
us and it is held with more or less distinctness by other 
distinguished writers. Still we are impelled to inquire : 
Eternal Life ! Who ? What ? How is it to be under- 
stood ? We know it is written : " This is life eternal that 
they should know Thee, the only true God, and Him whom 
Thou didst send, Jesus Christ " ; and of this Jesus it is said 
that He has "life abiding in Himself." Thus by these 
passages, as well as by the peculiar language of Carpenter 
and Harnack' s definition we are led to seek from the Sa- 

1 " What is Christianity," pp. 8, 9. 



210 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

viour Himself an idea of the religion that bears His 
name. 

Were I asked for a brief but comprehensive definition of 
Christianity, a definition that would express its essential 
nature in the fewest possible words, I would answer, 
"Christ." For He is its essence and its substance, its 
foundation and its superstructure, its source and its stream, 
its root and its flower. He is its " Alpha and Omega," its 
"Beginning and its Ending," its "Yea" and "Amen." 
In this distinction and not in the height of its intellectual 
conceptions and the depth of its moral convictions, is its 
separation from other religious systems most emphatic and 
pronounced. They all in common have sacred houses, in- 
spired books, sacerdotal orders, ceremonial observances, 
and solemn worships, and to some extent, the same funda- 
mental teachings ; but only Christianity is merged in its 
author, and is the shadow of His presence and the aureole 
of His glory. 

Michelet recognized the accuracy of this view, while he 
criticised what it involves and disdained what it implies. 
In his "Bible of Humanity " he writes : 

"But what to love? What to believe? About that 
there was no precise formula. To love the teacher, and to 
believe on the teacher. To take his very person, a living 
creed, for a symbol and a creed. This is the very accu- 
rate meaning of all that St. Paul has written, and which 
has been marvellously well stated in this sentence : ' Jesus 
taught nothing but Himself.' " 

The sentence quoted is from Renan, and it is singular 
that these brilliant French infidels should so clearly discern 
what many ecclesiastics and dogmatic teachers have fre- 
quently overlooked. Yet the fact is unquestionable that in 
their miserable contentions about churches, doctrines, apos- 
tolical successions, hierarchical dignities, and "rites mag- 



THE CHRISTIANITY OF CHKIST 211 

ical to sanctify," they have not uncommonly obscured this 
distinction, and left the impression on mankind that Chris- 
tianity is Christ, not that Christ is Christianity. 

Judged by the New Testament, this confusion of thought 
on a subject so momentous is unwarranted and inexcusable. 
Everywhere is the Saviour presented as the permanent life 
and soul of the new religion. He is spoken of as " the 
author and finisher of our faith," as " the head over all 
things to the church," and as " the head of the church" 
itself; and as the Being in whom all things are "to be 
gathered together, both which are in heaven, and which 
are on the earth." It is said that " the church is His body, 
the fullness of Him that filleth all in all," "in whom," to 
change the figure, " all the building, fitly framed together, 
groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord." He dwells in 
His disciples, and "they are complete in Him." They 
" grow up into Him in all things," and they " learn Him," 
as well as of Him, they are "His members" as it were, 
bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh. Paul exclaims, 
"But of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made 
unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and 
redemption " ; and John declares, " In Him was life and 
the life was the light of men." Conversion is an engraft- 
ing into Christ ; baptism is the putting on of Christ ; the 
supper is the appropriation of Christ's flesh and blood, and 
perfection is " the measure of the stature of the fullness of 
Christ." 

Thus is He Himself the totality, the wholeness, the en- 
tirety of what He came to establish among men ; and in 
His own preaching, as in that of His apostles, this idea is 
kept continuously prominent. He claimed to be the Sa- 
viour of the world ; He assumed to stand as the only way 
of access to the Father, and as the only source of spiritual 
existence on the earth. The kingdom He founded was 



212 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

His kingdom ; the church He constituted was His church, 
and the disciples He called were His disciples. They were 
"made clean through His word"; they were to pray in 
His name ; they were to rejoice in His joy ; and He 
promised Himself to answer their supplications ; to 
"dwell in them and manifest Himself to them," and to 
"be with them always, even unto the end of the world." 
Throughout His entire ministry, as Luthardt says, "He 
makes Himself the central point of His every announce- 
ment. 'It is I,' is the great text of all His teaching. 
' If ye believe not that I am He, ye shall die in your sins,' 
is, in fact, a saying in which His whole doctrine may be 
summed up." 

All of these varied statements are substantially expressed 
by the words of my text, as the burden of a melody may 
be condensed in a few bars of music, — " I am the way, and 
the truth, and the life," — words that were originally spoken 
to meet the questionings of those who were groping to- 
wards the heavenly light, and words on which I desire to 
dwell. 

They first assure us, if we transpose them as I prefer to 
do, that Christ Himself is God's revelation to man. He is 
the Bible given to humanity ; the " Living Epistle " com- 
mitted to the churches. In the "Drama of Exile" we 
have these tremendous lines : 

" Eternity stands always fronting God ; 
A stern, colossal image, with blind eyes 
And grand, dim lips that murmur evermore, 
God, God, God ! " 

Ay, thus indeed stood it through many ages until He 
came, the first-born and only begotten of Eternity; but 
now its eyes are opened to the world through Him, and by 



THE CHRISTIANITY OF CHRIST 213 

His gracious lips it articulates its message of undying love 
to men. 

Mr. Browning has called man the microcosm of the uni- 
verse, "the adding up of works." 

" Since God collected and resumed in man 
The firmaments, the strata, and the lights, 
Fish, fowl and beast, and insect — all their trains 
Of various life." 

But if man is the epitome of creation, a syllabus of 
nature's book, Christ is more. In Him not merely earth 
and heaven meet, but God Himself is received into His 
humanity, and therefrom is reflected on the world. He 
localizes in His person, Omnipresence ; He concentrates 
within finite limits Infinitude ; and focuses in His own 
being the moral spendor of the Everlasting Judge. " He 
that hath seen Me hath seen the Father," is His own testi- 
mony to Himself. In condescension to our infirmities, the 
formless One has taken form, not that of angels, but of 
men ; and that He might be one with them, and of them, 
He was wornbed in humanity, incarnated in flesh and born 
into the world. 

The exile-prophet by the river Chebar, above the firma- 
ment of gleaming, glowing crystal, and above the majestic 
manifold wheels, and the all-pervading and enfolding fire, 
" beheld the likeness of a throne as the appearance of a 
sapphire stone, and upon the likeness of the throne the like- 
ness as the appearance of a man," and now we also from 
our land of exile discern upon the throne that rises above 
the sea of glass, and above the ten thousand times ten 
thousand that minister to His glory, "the appearance of a 
man," even of Him to whom in the fullness of time it was 
said : "Sit ye at My right hand until I make thine ene- 
mies thy footstool." Strange it is, but true, that it is now 



214 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

difficult to think of God apart from Christ. He who did 
not spurn humanity, saying, "I have no need of thee," is 
now only discernible through the veil of its graces and 
perfections. The manhood of Christ is indispensable to 
the revelation of the Godhood of God. 

Even those theists who see in Christ only an extraor- 
dinary human personage, in speaking of the Being whom 
they worship, at best but reproduce the character of Him 
whose creaturehood they so persistently affirm. Their 
definitions are supplied by Him ; their vocabulary is de- 
rived from His discourses, and their ideas were originally 
embodied in His life. Were they to thrust from them 
what He taught and what He expresses they would have 
to confess that they had lost their God. His revelation of 
the Father then stands in the strength of its integrity ; and 
though misguided men may reject Him, they dare not 
despise and cannot dispense with His message. 

Christ, as the world's Bible, unfolds to man his duty, 
and thus supplements what He makes known of the Cre- 
ator with what is due Him from the creature. The obli- 
gations of humanity are not only set forth in our Lord's 
life, but they are illustrated as well. He " squares to rule 
the instincts of the soul"; He gives the clue that leads 
through the whole labyrinth of duty, and shows that all 
the paths unite at one centre, and that centre love. The 
ebb and flow of feeling, the light and deep waves of emo- 
tion, He explains, prescribes their boundaries, and directs 
their currents. He is the mold into which society and the 
individual can safely flow, assured that the impression they 
will receive from Him will accord with the everlasting rule 
of right, and will minister to their highest good. 

Few, if any, will dispute this statement. His theology 
may be questioned, but not His ethics. Everywhere they 
are recognized as the purest and truest standard of human 



THE CHRISTIANITY OF CHRIST 215 

worth. They are commended by all, they are extolled by 
all j even by those who never seek to transmute them into 
conduct. The final appeal of the vexed conscience is 
carried to His tribunal, and the perplexing scruples of the 
sensitive are laid at His feet. He is the ultimate rule of 
practice, acknowledged without controversy, and under- 
stood without interpretation. A child can follow Him, 
and a sage can do no more, and all may learn His mean- 
ing simply by looking on His life, unaided by priest or 
preacher. 

As the " Truth," Christ's mission would have been 
sadly incomplete had He not revealed to man something 
of the future world. He spoke not much of the "here- 
after," as He was busy with the "here," and yet He did 
not altogether hide from our eyes the glory of heaven. 
" In My Father's house are many mansions," and " I will 
come and receive you unto Myself; that where I am there 
ye may be also." Thus He spoke, and thus He taught, 
that heaven is where He is. 

" The bride eyes not her garments, 

But her dear bridegroom's face ; 
I will not gaze at glory, 

But on my King of Grace — 
Not at the crown He giveth, 

But on His pierced hand, 
The Lamb is all the glory 

Of Immanuel's land." 

Rutherford in these lines correctly interprets our Sa- 
viour's doctrine ; but I am constrained to go farther, and 
teach that Christ on earth was Himself the revelation of 
heaven. Would you know what it is? Look on Him. 
Its essential nature lies not in crowns and robes and 
thrones, for He was poor, rejected and despised, but in se- 
renity, rest and love. He was incarnate heaven, as He 



216 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

was incarnate God. Its majesty, its peace, its blessedness, 
came down with Him, and with Him traversed the earth, 
as the sunlight for a little season lights up and warms the 
deepest and the darkest ravine. Would you know what 
awaits you in the approaching life? Look at Him. 
Would you analyze the hope set before you ? Then think 
of Him. He is all that you can wish for or desire. That 
world for which you pant, and towards which your sad- 
dened steps are bending, is holiness, infinite quiet, repose 
of mind and heart, and love immeasurable. The absence 
or incompleteness of these things makes time what it is, 
and their presence and perfectness will invest eternity with 
joy and beauty. 

This is the Lord's message in Himself, to humanity, and 
it is because all these revelations are summed up in Him 
that He is called "The Truth," and it is because of this 
that I have ventured to call Him " the Bible." Of course, 
I admit that there is a book which bears this name, and 
which is to be esteemed and studied. But in comparison 
with Him it is only as the atmosphere, the medium of 
sight, and not as the object whose image it transmits. 
The Bible enables us to see the sun of righteousness, but 
it is the sun itself that guides us on our way. The sacred 
Scriptures are the outer garments and insignia of our Lord, 
by which we recognize His character and His dignity; 
but He, not them, is the supreme rule of our faith and 
practice. Whether they are verbally inspired or not is 
comparatively a small matter as long as we discern in Him 
the fullness and completeness of God's revelation to the 
race. Where that is discerned, whatever views of inspira- 
tion may prevail, we should forbear to judge the loyalty of 
others, and may believe that the doctrines which He ex- 
pressed and the precepts which He illustrated will con- 
tinue ever to elevate and bless mankind. 



THE CHRISTIANITY OF CHRIST 217 

The text we are studying presents Christ, not only as the 
" Truth," but as the "Way." 

The subject of the conversation, in the course of which 
the text occurs, was heaven. Our Saviour was going 
thither, and He would bring His disciples there at last. 
But how shall they know the way ? In response He de- 
clares that He came, not to point it out, to be as a sign- 
board to the weary traveller, but to be Himself the path. 
This representation corresponds in meaning with the pas- 
sages which describe Him as the high priest of our 
salvation, as the redeemer, and as the "one mediator be- 
tween man and God." The force of these declarations 
can never be exhausted by any theory of His office that 
excludes or overlooks His atoning work. They certainly 
intimate that He came to unite the divided, to reclaim the 
wandering, and to rescue the guilty. 

Paul teaches that " God hath reconciled us to Himself 
by Jesus Christ," and " that God was in Christ reconcil- 
ing the world unto Himself." This is something more than 
teaching morality, or exemplifying love. Important as 
these sacred endeavors are, we confront in the language of 
the apostle something more striking and unique. Were it 
otherwise, hardly could Peter have proclaimed as positively 
as he did, " Neither is there salvation in any other ; for there 
is none other name given under heaven among men 
whereby we must be saved." In view of these passages 
the least we can say is that Christ removes all barriers 
and hindrances to man's acceptance with the Father. 
What these barriers are we may not be able to perceive 
clearly, and how they are destroyed we may not fully un- 
derstand ; but that they are swept away in Him is one of 
the plainest teachings, if not the plainest, of the Scriptures. 

Certainly a disinclination on the part of the Almighty to 
save the guilty was not one of the difficulties to be over- 



218 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

come. To His love the sacred writers trace the origin of 
redemption, and representing him as being in Christ when 
its measures were accomplished. If orthodoxy has created 
the impression that God was burning with fiery indignation 
against the sinner, and was breathing out threats and 
slaughter which could only be allayed by the interposition 
of His Son, and that His Son, by excruciating sufferings, 
won from Him a reluctant assent to mercy, it has done 
that for which it may well implore forgiveness. If that is 
orthodoxy it is not Bible. 

The Scriptures, on the contrary, represent the Deity as 
yearning with loving solicitude, for the deliverance of man 
from the evils which environ him, and which reign over 
him ; as unwilling to abandon him, and at last as sending 
His Son, or, to speak more accurately, as coming in the 
person of His Son, to effect redemption. Whatever was 
done began in God Himself, was planned by Him, was 
proposed by Him, yea, and was even executed by Him. 
The partisan theory of salvation, which is unfairly attrib- 
uted to orthodoxy, and which arrays the Father and the 
Son on opposite sides, may have been taught by some 
theologians of the middle ages, but now it has no advo- 
cates, and therefore is not deserving serious attention. 

The obstacles to be removed were not in God, wher- 
ever else they may have been. They may have been in 
law, in the moral order of the universe, or in man himself, 
but assuredly not in God. Conceivably law may have in- 
terposed a barrier ; for we know from our experience how 
difficult it is to escape the retributive sequence of its vio- 
lation. When we are enmeshed in the consequences of 
transgression, we speedily realize that there is only one 
avenue of escape, one method of extrication, and one that 
is not always available — compensation. If we have robbed 
others, to deliver ourselves from the penalty entailed, we 



THE CHEISTIANITY OF CHKIST 219 

must not only be honest in the future, we must restore the 
equivalent of what we have taken in the past. Any kind 
of wrong committed must not only be abandoned, it must 
be repaired. In many cases how impossible this is ; and 
where it is impossible, even though contrition for the evil 
wrought may be sincere and deep, how impossible it is to 
pacify the conscience and renew the lost feeling of self- 
respect. 

Compensation is clamored for by our own moral in- 
stincts, as that which the dishonored law demands, and 
which it must and should receive. But if it is indispensa- 
ble in the course of ordinary transgression, and if without 
it there is no escape from the commonplace guilt of daily 
life, how much more must it be required in the case of 
man's apostasy from God, in which not only the precepts 
of law are outraged, but its very existence and authority 
treated with disdain? And if in the former instances 
compensation is at times so difficult to render, who in the 
latter can ever hope to render it in full ? 

Evidently under the government of God there is a place 
and a demand for compensation which human endeavor is 
inadequate to furnish, and which must be supplied by one 
who is entirely separate and free from man's transgression. 
Such an one is Christ. He is Himself the needed com- 
pensation. His voluntary incarnation means His voluntary 
submission to the law ; His obedient life under adverse 
circumstances, and conditions of suffering, of suffering even 
unto death, means His acceptance of it as holy, just, and 
good in all of its terrible processes and retributive se- 
quences. He magnifies it and makes it honorable, restores 
its dignity and authority, reinvests it with its glory and ex- 
alts it in the eyes of men and angels. Here is compensa- 
tion, — compensation that meets in full the just demands of 
insulted law, that overcomes one of the greatest hindrances 



220 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

to man's salvation, and that renders eternal life accessible 
to all. 

I have said one, for there yet remains another. It is 
in man himself. He is spiritually dead ; he must be made 
alive. This also is the work of Christ. As the compen- 
sation of the law He is the " Way " ; as the vitalizing prin- 
ciple of the soul He is the "Life." Nor is He this sim- 
ply because all spiritual forces inhere in Him ; but in addi- 
tion, because His self-sacrificing obedience has begotten a 
moral power over humanity. This is acknowledged by 
those who question His divinity, and it is felt by those who 
reject His atonement. It is the one fact about which there 
is hardly any controversy. 

All admit that contact with Him purifies, and that in 
destroying the love of sin He extricates us from its penalty. 
The Hindu sages relate a legend which illustrates the 
principle involved. They represent the Rajah Vievamitra, 
an eastern ruler, a writer of Vedic hymns, and parent of a 
hundred sons, as deciding to become a Brahmin. His ap- 
plication is rejected. Whereupon he retires to solitude, 
undergoes self-mortifications and sufferings for a thousand 
years, thereby acquiring such merit and such formidable 
power that he can annihilate the world and empty heaven 
and earth of gods and men with a word or at a nod. He 
is besought by celestial beings to spare the universe, and 
he consents, but he himself never dies. He lives on for- 
ever. Time cannot destroy him. 

Under the surface of this legend we find a truth of the 
greatest moment. It teaches the power of the soul, which, 
according to Hindu thought, when strong in righteous- 
ness, and emptied of selfishness, can make and unmake, 
create and annihilate as well. Such moral omnipotence 
has Christ acquired over men by His disregard of self, His 
love for them, and His devotion to the supremacy of law. 



THE CHRISTIANITY OF CHRIST 221 

By His disinterestedness He wins them from worldliness, 
by His affection from earthliness, and by His self-sacrific- 
ing obedience from self-seeking meanness and folly. When 
He thus becomes to the individual the source of a nobler 
and a purer existence, He also becomes to him the assur- 
ance of an eternal life of felicity. 

In receiving Christ man receives as well the evidence of 
personal and blessed immortality. Previously this hope 
gleamed upon his soul like moonrise ; now it shines with 
all the splendor of a sunrise. Once it was a wish, a 
probability ; now it is a conviction, a certainty. Now it 
matters not to him when death comes to call him from the 
things of earth, things both dear and loved. Time was 
when the footfall of the destroyer approaching his dwelling 
filled him with a nameless horror, when the chill of its 
breath thrilled him with alarm, and when he would have 
fled into the deepest depths to hide from the hated pres- 
ence. But that time is passed. Christ being with him 
and in him, he throws wide his window and opens wide 
his door, that death may be welcomed when it comes; 
and if he pauses irresolute on the threshold, or clings 
to loved ones reluctant to depart, it is not that he fears 
the strange unseen, but that he would fain bear with 
him the sacred treasures of earth to enrich the wealth of 
heaven. 

From these premises it is my conclusion and conviction 
that in all essential respects Christ Himself is Christianity. 
Not the visible church, not its solemn ordinances, not its 
discipline, institutions, or observances. These are all im- 
portant in their place. They are accessories, appendages, 
instrumentalities and adornments. They give structural 
stability to truth; they organize the spiritual forces of 
society, and perpetuate the memory of Christ's mission in 
the world. I would not undervalue them; I admit no 



222 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

man's right to tamper with them ; I insist that they shall 
be maintained and venerated, but I deprecate that care- 
lessness of statement, or that perversion of scripture, which 
has led so many to regard them as in some sense of saving 
value. Such they certainly are not, and such they never 
can be. Trust them not, I pray, for they will fail you ; 
confide not to them the interests of your soul, for they will 
betray you. The only Saviour is Christ, and whosoever 
trusteth Him shall never be confounded. 

If the doctrine of this discourse is true, then, my breth- 
ren, we are bound to make Christ the centre of our medi- 
tations, our worship and our preaching. In other words, 
if we would have Christianity we must have Christ, for 
without Christ Christianity is impossible. I make this re- 
mark because in some quarters a disposition has been mani- 
fested to dispense with Him, and yet retain the name of His 
religion. A recent writer calls attention to an Easter serv- 
ice in which " from beginning to end neither the name of 
Jesus nor of Christ appeared, nor any allusion to the resur- 
rection." He also refers to a book of song for Sunday- 
schools which might be used for a series of years without 
Christ ever being heard of; and alludes to articles of 
agreement adopted by a professed church in which no 
mention is made of God, of Christ, or of the Bible. This 
state of things he deplores, and for himself bears this testi- 
mony : " Outside of spiritual allegiance to Him (Christ), 
I find no effectual approach to men, no sufficient argument 
for self-denial and self-sacrifice." Well may he write thus, 
for even Strauss, avowed rationalist as he was, admits that 
"Christ remains the highest model of religion within the 
reach of our thought, and no perfect piety is possible with- 
out His presence in the heart." And he adds: "As 
little as humanity will be without religion, as little will it 
be without Christ; for to have religion without Christ 



THE CHRISTIANITY OF CHRIST 223 

would be as absurd as to enjoy poetry with regard to 
Homer or Shakespeare." 

If it shall be said that this drift is so far outside of or- 
thodox channels that it can hardly concern us, I might 
with safety say that this is not the case. 

But granting that we are sound and faithful in this re- 
spect, can we be indifferent to an error of such magnitude, 
seeking as it does to alienate society from Christ ? No, we 
cannot be indifferent without deservedly incurring censure. 
It is our duty, our preeminent duty, to exalt and magnify 
Christ j to direct towards Him the eyes of our fellow-beings, 
and to lead them, by our preaching and our lives, to trust 
Him and Him alone. We should protest against every 
endeavor to hide Him, to diminish His influence, to ob- 
scure His glory. We owe it to Him, we owe it to our- 
selves, yea, we owe it to the souls of men, and to society 
itself, from which religion will inevitably depart : — Strauss 
being judge — if Christ's name ceases to be reverenced and 
honored. If Christ is Christianity, then Christianity should 
be a portraiture of Christ. Can we say that it is? Can 
we claim that it faithfully represents Him, or that the world 
could form a just conception of what He is from what it 
is? 

These questions are too serious, too vital, to be treated 
lightly. Is it reasonable, I ask in all earnestness, to sup- 
pose that any candid inquirer, ignorant of the facts, would 
ever suspect that Christianity proceeded from such a being 
as Christ, or that He ever had the remotest connection 
with it ? I do not believe he would. No, he could hardly 
be convinced that this Christianity, rent and torn by dis- 
sensions ; degraded by unseemly wrangles over trifles ; split 
and separated into sects ; debased by worldliness and dis- 
figured by sordidness, had ever heard of Him whose name 
it has adopted. Its jealousies are so frequent, its petty am- 



224 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

bitions are so conspicuous, its faint-heartedness, cold-heart- 
edness, and, I was going to say, its hard-heartedness, are 
so manifest at times that it seems altogether more human 
than divine. When its members are indifferent to human 
welfare, and heedless of each other's happiness ; when its 
ministers are unconcerned for souls, and are careless of 
each other's good ; and when its courts are unmindful of 
Christian liberty, and indisposed to recognize the right of 
independent thought, the fair image of Christ is effaced, 
and its glory has departed. 

Place Christ before you and shape your religious life, 
your religious institutions, and your future religious work 
after His likeness. Impart to visible Christianity His 
moral beauty, His spiritual sublimity, His tender patience, 
His sweet forbearance, His gentle thoughtfulness, His 
boundless generosity, His sweet charity and enduring love : 
then will all men acknowledge its heavenly origin ; then 
will they reverently listen to its word, and then will they 
bring their hearts to its altars, and devote their energies to 
its service. Then, not till then, shall be heard all over 
the earth, 

" The music of the world's accord, 

Confessing Christ, the incarnate Word." 

Immeasurably grave the responsibility if the church shall 
fail to meet this obligation. The results of this failure, if 
we are to believe His word, are necessarily lamentable. 
If He is not exalted, if He is obscured, if He is hidden by 
indifference, faithlessness or faulty representation, how 
shall, how can, the world be saved? Let us not forget 
that the gracious assurance of the text is followed by a 
most startling announcement : " No one cometh unto the 
Father but by Me." He here assumes to be the only 
Saviour. All others He waves aside. If this claim is well- 



THE CHRISTIANITY OF CHRIST 225 

grounded, then all who know Him are bound by the most 
solemn considerations to make Him known. Can it be that 
His language is to be taken seriously ? If not, then He 
has trifled with the race on the most momentous of themes. 

I dare not challenge his statement particularly as there is 
no evidence that any of the alleged rivals of our Lord have 
ever saved any one. I am not inclined to underestimate 
what they may have done for humanity, and yet I am sat- 
isfied, whether they be persons, systems, or theories, their 
merits have been greatly exaggerated. Take as an in- 
stance, Buddha, of whom so much has been written of late, 
and for whom our admiration is bespoken, and estimate the 
real advantage of his mission to the world. You will find 
it infinitely less potent for good than you have been led 
to suppose by what has been said by his Anglo-American 
devotees. 

Disputing neither the nobility of his life nor the purity of 
certain sentiments he taught, nor yet denying the value of 
the reforms which he inaugurated, it cannot be shown that 
he renovated Indian society or radically changed for the 
better the character of individuals. Under the influence of 
the faith he proclaimed his mighty country declined, be- 
came a prey to the arms of England, and is now accepting 
the religion of its masters as its only hope of reinvigora- 
tion. What he taught was undoubtedly good enough as 
far as it went ; but it either went not far enough or failed to 
carry with it healthful restoring truth ; for it has been as 
impotent to impart moral strength as the disciples were at 
one time to cast out the demon from the body of the pos- 
sessed child. 

Recently it has been said that Krishna, a heathen deity, 
whose name, according to Sir William Jones, means 
" Black and Blue," but which has been written by unbe- 
lievers in such a way as to create the impression that it is 



226 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

substantially the same as "Christ," was very like our Sa- 
viour, not merely in his career, but likewise in what he 
wrought for humanity. These representations are largely 
visionary. We gather from various sources, including the 
Mahabharata and the Bhagavata Purana, that Krishna was 
regarded as an incarnation of Vishnu, combining in him- 
self not only exalted powers, but powers far otherwise than 
exalted, who in early days gave himself up to wanton de- 
lights with cowherdesses, and who in after life was famous 
for exploits in destroying the wicked and for certain humane 
counsels which were certainly in advance of his age. As to 
the degree of confidence to be reposed in this Indian hero, I 
have simply to say that it has been stated by those who are 
authorities, " that much personal biography is to be dis- 
cerned through this immeasurable haze of fable is improb- 
able enough." That is, his historical reality is exceedingly 
vague even as his influence over the morals of his era and 
subsequent periods has been exceedingly slight and 
shadowy. 

To exalt either of these heroes to a level with Christ, and 
to claim that they renovated society or set in operation 
spiritual forces which changed for the better its character 
in the same sense and the same degree as Christ did, is to 
assume immeasurably more than can be made good, and to 
be totally blind to the significance of the fact that the re- 
ligion of the latter is at present engaged in the task of sav- 
ing those who, according to the theories of infidels, have 
already been saved by the religion of the former. 

Equally impotent have education and various reforms 
proven. They have enlightened, they have in various ways 
been advantageous, but they have invariably stopped short 
of radical moral transformation. Neither personal nor so- 
cial purity resulted from the icy, snow-wreathed philosophy 
of the Porch ; neither did it spring from the speculations 



THE CHRISTIANITY OF CHRIST 227 

of the Academy ; neither did it follow the melody of Ho- 
mer, the wisdom of Socrates, the reasoning of Plato, the 
vivacity of Pindar, the gloomy tragicality of Euripides, the 
stately eloquence of Demosthenes, nor the sombre atheism 
of Lucretius. The works of the ancients, stimulating 
though they are to genius, are rather depressing than other- 
wise to the soul of innocence and truth. They do not 
promote virtue. They may be likened to the flora of far- 
off Eastern lands, rich, gigantic, brilliant, unsurpassed in 
size and color, yet creating an atmosphere heavy with dis- 
ease and charged with death. While more can be said in 
favor of other branches of education, yet for none can 
moral power commensurate with the world's need be 
claimed. The arts and sciences fail to touch the springs of 
conduct, and assuredly fail to cleanse them if they are 
befouled. What is true of head culture is, alas, only too 
true of those reforms which are set forth with so much ac- 
claim as the destined saviours of mankind. Now it is So- 
cialism that is paraded before us, red cap on head, coarse 
and violent in talk, the value of whose gospel may be esti- 
mated by the blood on its hands and the ghastly human 
heads carried about on its pikes. 

Trades unions are also introduced as having the " po- 
tency and promise " of a nobler life ; and yet when we find 
them leading to hasty strikes that impoverish thousands 
and to blackmailing walking delegates we cannot but feel 
that they are blind guides, and that, whatever good 
they may have done, they fail signally in bringing about 
any such changes as to entitle them to the rank which they 
assume. We cannot be ignorant of their failures, and how- 
ever pronounced their success may be in subordinate direc- 
tions, so long as these failures in more vital matters con- 
tinue they cannot be hailed as saviours of society. 

No ; it is not possible for your Buddhas, your Krishnas, 



228 THE MODEEN CEISIS IN EELIGION 

your Labor-Reform parties, and your Socialistic philan- 
thropies, to renovate humanity and thereby transform the 
character of society ? No ; they probe not deep enough ; 
their methods fail to touch the inbred evil ; their remedies 
merely drive the disease from the surface and do not expel 
it from the blood. There is nothing in their teachings or 
their appliances to create the least confidence in their suc- 
cess. They may reveal some noble duties, but they impart 
no power to perform them ; they may make known some 
worthy conceptions of what the world should be, but they 
communicate no recognizable moral force by which they 
may be realized. They are ships without sails, magnifi- 
cent machinery without steam, lamps without light, glori- 
ous landscapes without fertility, clouds without rain, bodies 
without life, motionless, unluminous, dry and dead, potent 
to promise, but, in the nature of things, impotent to 
execute. 

We are shut up to the conclusion that if there is a Sa- 
viour at all it must be Christ Jesus. He can and will save, 
and He has already saved. Witnesses to this fact are 
around us everywhere, and they start up from the distant 
past. Voices through all the centuries sounding and echo- 
ing to-day about us proclaim that " He is able to save to 
the uttermost all who come unto God by Him." The 
Bible declares that He is " the author of eternal salvation," 
"the captain of salvation " ; that " He was raised up a 
horn of salvation"; "that His own arm brought salva- 
tion " ; and that He is " mighty to save." Nineteen hun- 
dred years confirm the testimony of Holy Writ, and still at 
the hour when distress is deepest and guilt is blackest, and 
when disappointment is keenest and despair is direst, all 
kinds and conditions of men instinctively turn to Christ as 
the one sure and available refuge. 

Hence, Christianity, if true to herself, has no other Re- 



THE CHRISTIANITY OF CHEIST 229 

deemer to preach, and in reality has no other Redeemer to 
trust. Instead, therefore, of searching for other suns than 
the one that warms the earth to-day, rejoice in what you 
know to be yours, and, instead of wondering whether there 
may not be other Christs, accept the One who comes to 
you now so tenderly and pleadingly. As Peter on the 
threshold of the Beautiful Gate preached Him and Him 
only, so should Christian people, standing in the radiance 
of their own experience, and standing likewise in the 
more beautiful gate that leads to Paradise, take up His tes- 
timony, and by speech and deed declare that "there is 
none other name under heaven given among men whereby 
we must be saved." 



X 

THE CROWNING GLORY OF CHRISTIANITY 

" The greatest of these is love." — i Corinthians ij ; ij. 

NO attribute of man's soul, no possibility of his 
nature, has been invested with such regal hon- 
ors as love. Reason has been extolled, imagi- 
nation has been praised and physical beauty has been 
adored, but love has been exalted over them all as the at- 
mosphere of heaven blessing the earth, and as the aureole 
of glory crowning the saint with divine effulgence. 

While not unknown to the ancients, while leading to 
many notable sacrifices in the past, and while recognized 
by the old Mosaic law, still two thousand years ago the 
world had only an incomplete knowledge of its nature or 
of its dignity. The import of each virtue grows in depth 
and significance with the progress of the ages. 

It is not that these features of human excellence are ab- 
solutely changed in the course of events, but rather that 
they take on a higher and grander meaning. Honor 
among the people of pre-Christian times, while in its es- 
sence what it is now, was more irrational, more grotesque 
and more quarrelsome than at present. Compassion was 
only rudimentary in those remote periods, and those in 
whom it dwelt could without sense of self-condemnation 
visit extraordinary sufferings on offenders and savage bar- 
barities on those captured in war. 

In these days our sensibilities are shocked at the recital 
of wrongs endured, and by the story of miseries expe- 
rienced by the wayward and the worthless. Justice also 

230 



CROWNING GLORY OF CHRISTIANITY 231 

denotes more to this generation than to any preceding one. 
Every now and then it is intimated that the sense of it has 
declined, but the fact is we know more of it, and we are 
more sensitive to its failures, and realize more than our 
ancestors how wide-reaching it should be. Hence, our 
complaints and our discouragements. We must remember 
that the dictionary which defines and illuminates these 
virtues is history. If we would know what they are we 
must consult its annals. We must take all the examples 
of honor, truth, integrity and righteousness which occur on 
its pages and get at their essence, if we would form an ad- 
equate idea of their character. 

Love, likewise, must be understood and estimated in the 
same manner. History has been pouring into this word 
the disinterestedness, the self-abnegation, the heroic mar- 
tyrdom, the tender ministries, the lowly services, begin- 
ning with the teachings and sacrifice of our Lord, to the 
last act of generous kindness performed, and love means 
more to-day than at any previous time. The more we 
comprehend it, the more fully do we sympathize with our 
Lord's judgment in making it central to the religion He 
founded, and the very source and spring of everything 
divinest and noblest in our earthly life. 

When St. Paul penned this eloquent tribute, religion 
had reached the most important stage in its historical de- 
velopment. The glittering ceremonial of Judaism, the 
splendid and superstitious ritualism of paganism, were de- 
cadent and departing, and the miraculous gifts and won- 
ders of primitive Christianity were already preparing to 
vanish away. 

These things, like the grass and its flower, were being 
cut down and were rapidly fading. Religion was passing 
through a most stupendous transformation — from being 
provincial it was becoming catholic, from being a shadow 



232 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

it was becoming a reality, from being a form it was becom- 
ing a life, and from being a bondage it was becoming a 
redemption from sin and guilt and from the social tyran- 
nies of the ancient world. 

But to a people who had always identified it with the 
outward, with magnificent temples, with gorgeous priest- 
hoods, with visible altars, and with pretentiousness of be- 
wildering marvels, these changes were almost synonymous 
with the triumph of atheism. Dispossessed of these dis- 
tinctive marks, how could the new cult, whose founder 
was a peasant, whose apostles were fishermen, whose sign 
was the infamous cross, and whose worship was so essen- 
tially spiritual as to render superfluous sacred localities and 
sacred orders, hope to arrest the attention or secure the 
homage of mankind ? 

To meet this perplexity St. Paul devotes various pas- 
sages in his invaluable epistles ; and in this portion of his 
letter to the Corinthians, where the same doubt seems to 
be troubling the disciples, he declares that God had pro- 
vided substitutes for the things that were necessarily tran- 
sient — "faith, hope, love." These three are to remain, 
these three, the one opening the eyes to God and the un- 
seen, the second opening the eyes to the better future, both 
in time and eternity, and the third opening the eyes to see 
the sacredness of humanity and to feel for the woes and 
sorrows, sins and shame, of every fellow-being. The apos- 
tle is quite sure that these surpass in value all that they 
supplant, and that these three are themselves sufficient to 
invest religion with attractiveness and power ; and that in 
their presence the external pomp and showy observances 
to which they so tenaciously clung dwindled into insignifi- 
cance and vanity. 

Of these graces the apostle singles out one which sur- 
passes in greatness the others, and devotes this beautiful 



CROWNING GLORY OF CHRISTIANITY 233 

chapter to its exposition and exaltation. To him it is evi- 
dently the special and crowning glory of Christianity. 

The great religions of the world are distinguishable from 
each other by some supreme characteristic. Thus, the 
genius of Hinduism is mysticism, that of Buddhism is as- 
ceticism, that of Parseeism is dualism, that of Mohammed- 
anism is fanaticism, that of Confucianism is secularism, — 
and that of our own faith is altruism, or love. No other 
inference than this is possible from the teachings of the 
New Testament. There God is represented as sending His 
Son to the earth because He loved, and He in this way 
" commends His love," and then St. John, seeking to sum 
up His nature in a single word, exclaims : " God is love ! " 
Here then we have the origin of the Christian religion. It 
has been begotten of a divine love, and in this grace it is 
to find its true expression and its most complete fulfillment. 
Hence the many and varied ways in which its spirit and 
obligations are enjoined on the disciples. They are to love 
God with all their mind and strength, and their neighbor 
as themselves. They are reminded that love edifies, and 
that it covers a multitude of sins, and more than all that it 
is the essence of the new birth ; "for he who loveth is 
born of God." 

The church of late years has come more and more into 
sympathy with this conception, and the world lying beyond 
its bounds has professed itself charmed and fascinated by 
such a religion. Yet there is reason to fear that they are 
both, to some extent, at least, ravished by a sentimental 
illusion of their own creation, and that neither has a com- 
prehensive idea of what is involved in that which they 
praise so fervently. Indeed, there are not lacking signs 
that we love more in word than in deed, that we frequently 
substitute the word, especially when it is an eloquent one, 
for the deed, and that sometimes we are wholly at fault in 



234 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

our understanding of what Christian love really is, what it 
enjoins, what it leads to and what is the secret of its power. 
In these circumstances I may be permitted to examine 
anew 

The Crowning Glory of Christianity 
That love is entitled to be thus distinguished is demon- 
strated by what St. Paul says in this chapter concerning 
its relative value, its incomparable character, and its im- 
perishable influence. 

We can hardly fail to observe, as we follow the apostle's 
thought, that in this tribute he is magnifying affection on 
its human side and in its earthly manifestations, and does 
not once relate it to its supreme object, the Heavenly Father. 
A recent writer reminds us that this too is somewhat 
noticeable in the teachings of Christ : " The references 
which He makes to the love which man bears to God are 
fewer than might have been supposed from the intensity 
with which the mystics have urged this on mankind as the 
supreme ideal of religion." May it not be that just here 
we touch on one of the misconceptions which have ren- 
dered some of the saints vulnerable to criticism ? 

They have wrought themselves into a fervor of passionate 
devotion, or into an ecstasy of feeling, and this they have 
looked on as love for God, and have imagined because of 
the comfort and satisfaction they themselves experienced 
that in this way they have also exhibited and exhausted 
their love for man. But this does not follow. I am 
inclined to interpret our Lord's comparative reticence on 
how we are to show our love for God, and His specific 
and minute instruction as to how we are to evince it for our 
fellow-beings, as designed to save us from this confusion, 
and to remind us that, after all, it is by benevolent human 
service we fulfill the promptings of our love for God. For, 



CROWNING GLORY OF CHRISTIANITY 235 

as an earthly parent is touched more deeply and is 
honored more highly by kindnesses shown to his children 
than to himself, so our Father in heaven is pleased to 
accept as worship what we do to aid and to bless His 
children when inspired by our love for Him. 

In estimating the value of this grace, which is done in 
the three opening verses of the chapter, there are certain 
words which are of importance to the exposition : " though 
I speak" "though I have" and " though I bestow." 
That is, love is quite superior to anything we may say, 
anything we may possess, or anything we may confer or 
give. 

And yet tongues, both of men and of angels, are of in- 
computable worth. Of the latter we cannot form an 
adequate idea, and can only imagine that they must sur- 
pass the power of human eloquence. But who shall fix 
for us the terms of our indebtedness to what we do know, 
whether oral or written, whether it charm us through the 
potent spell of the voice, or through the silent fascination 
of the printed page ? 

Speech, what has it not done ? It has been the truest 
torch by which the world's ignorance has been dispelled ; 
it has been a human sacrament by which the world's faith 
has been quickened; it has been the noblest tribune by 
which the world's rights have been defended ; it has been 
the sweetest harp by which the world's sorrows have been 
assuaged ; it has been the keenest sword by which the 
world's liberties have been championed ; and it has been 
the mightiest force by which the world's progress has been 
accelerated. Yet love is worth more than it. One breath 
of love is more excellent and precious than the finest sen- 
tences ever woven, or the grandest peroration ever uttered 
when love is absent. There is more healing in its touch, 
more consolation in its smile than in all the stately periods 



236 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

of a Burke or Webster, of a Massillon or Hooker. With- 
out it oratory is a delusion and a snare ; and what is pitiably 
pathetic there is no necessary connection between them. 
Men may write and talk beautiful things, and avow the 
purest sentiments, and do it all in the most poetic phrases, 
and the heart be dead and cold. Well, then, does the 
apostle liken such loveless speech to clanging brass and 
tinkling cymbals, to a noise that crashes on the ear and 
startles, but which conveys no subtle sound of divinest 
melody to the troubled soul. 

In comparison also with possessions love is preeminent. 
This is the apostle's second standard of valuation. The 
treasures he enumerates are not to be despised. They 
include the "gift of prophecy," « the knowledge of 
mysteries," and " the faith to remove mountains." These 
surely are worthy any man's solicitude and ambition. 
They have too often been extolled to need fresh appraise- 
ment now. But the distinction here implied is altogether 
startling. 

It is intimated that these possessions may be held and 
exercised by those who are strangers to the grace of love. 
Our Lord once said : "Ye shall profess to have cast out 
devils in My name, and in My name to have done many 
wonderful works. I will say unto you, Depart, I never 
knew you." What ! people overcoming the powers of 
darkness and achieving marvels, and yet unowned by the 
blessed Saviour ! Why, there are persons in many of our 
cities who are removing mountains of nervous diseases, 
and who claim that they succeed because they feel more 
fully than others the force of divine love, and who are 
proselyting feeble evangelical professors in the name of the 
life of love ; and yet, if this text is to be credited, all that 
they accomplish is possible without love. 

Prophecies may be uttered by a Balaam; a Simon 



CROWNING GLOEY OF CHRISTIANITY 237 

Magus may bewitch by his sorceries ; a Judas may share 
with his brethren of the apostolate in casting out devils 
and still be seekers of gain and indifferent to human 
affection. These marvels of Lourdes, these healings that 
proceed from mental suggestion or hypnotism, or from 
some other unexplained psychic force, may be wrought by 
those in whom the divine spirit is no more operative than 
in those who, pretending to no such power, are doing their 
best to live nobly and unsensationally. Nay, it is quite 
mortifying to read that we may have knowledge, discern- 
ment, foresight and faith, and yet be really nothing. This 
is humiliating. 

Love is worth more than all else. It is the ballast 
needed in life's voyage, and without it we are unfitted for 
our mission. Last winter a great steamer arrived in port 
and hundreds of her bolts were found to be loose. The 
waves had pounded her from without, and she had not had 
enough cargo within to resist the attacks. Hence she had 
to be overhauled. She had, so to speak, knowledge, she 
had discernment or foresight to see her way, and she had 
overcome mountains of waters — but she was "nothing." 
She had brought nothing to America, and was very much 
damaged by doing so. Love is necessary to make all of 
our other possessions in the highest sense useful, and to 
keep them from proving a possible detriment to our spiritual 
progress. 

Neither can our gifts serve as a substitute and compen- 
sation for its absence. " And though I bestow all my 
goods to feed the poor — it profiteth me nothing," con- 
tinues the apostle in this most disillusionizing discourse. 
Why, we moderns have almost come to identify almsgiving 
with religion, and have almost concluded that if we feed 
the poor after we have made our millions the Lord will 
forgive us, even if we have somewhat starved the poor for 



238 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

the sake of making them. No honest student of the 
Scriptures can for a moment credit so preposterous a 
position. We may be generous with our money, and we 
may give promptly so as not to be annoyed by importunity, 
or even as an act of retributive justice against our own 
oppressions demanded by our outraged conscience, and yet 
be utterly devoid of religion. 

It is very sad to see people missing the mark. Love is 
the very essence of religion, and without it there is no 
religion. The Romanist may trust his ceremonies and the 
Protestant his benefactions; but these things will profit 
neither of them anything. Whatever significance they 
may have, and whatever good they may do, they are 
valueless without love — and if love be present, then a 
bishop such as Victor Hugo paints is a blessing, notwith- 
standing his rituals, and then a poor curate or vicar, such 
as Goldsmith portrays, is a living benefaction to society, 
notwithstanding his poverty. 

All this is suggested by what St. Paul writes, without in 
the least detracting from the relative worth of faith, 
knowledge, prophecy, benevolence or any other good 
thing. All of these treasures have their place and office 
in Christ's church. All have a beauty, though love is the 
fairest ; all are children of God, though love is the divinest. 
It is impossible to dispense with faith, for we must believe 
something ; nor can we do without hope, for we must all 
be inspired by expectation ; and we cannot progress with- 
out knowledge, for by light do we see how to advance ; but 
love transcends them all, is the highest mountain top in all 
this glorious range of excellencies, without which they 
would be as apparently dwarfed and dull as would be the 
alpine scenery of Switzerland without Mont Blanc or the 
Matterhorn. 

The apostle having computed the exceptional precious- 



CROWNING GLORY OF CHRISTIANITY 239 

ness of love proceeds to give a sketch of her character. He 
furnishes the church a full-length portrait of her many 
charms. 

Trench thinks this was necessary, as the word employed 
was not known in classic literature, and had to be fash- 
ioned to create the idea. This point I will not dispute 
with the learned author of "Synonyms and their Uses," 
and yet Plato calls the sympathy between mind and mind 
by the name of love. We may, however, concede this 
much, that the old term had to be newly defined and bap- 
tized into a new spirit. New Testament love can never be 
annotated and interpreted by classical literature, but only 
by the New Testament itself. The verses from the fourth 
to the seventh inclusive, give us a noble conception of its 
wonderful and comprehensive significance. Let us unveil 
the picture painted by St. Paul, and attempt to restore 
some of the colors which have been a trifle obscured by 
their exposure to the strange sentimental atmosphere of 
modern life. 

We ought, first of all, to take note of her graciousness 
and unobtrusiveness. She "vaunteth not herself and is 
not puffed up." On the housetops she does not stand 
drawing attention to herself. The disposition to parade 
and show off is not hers. In this she differs from much 
that has assumed her name in modern times. We may 
receive with caution the loud asseverations of those who 
insist that they are preeminently the lovers of their fellow- 
men. This grace always reveals itself in deeds, and not in 
empty protestations. Love does not "behave herself un- 
seemly " — is not arrogant, flighty and exacting. But she 
is kind ; that is, always considerate and courteous. Her 
speech is healing and sweet, and her thoughtfulness of the 
feelings of others is constant. She remembers that the 
poorest and humblest are human beings. 



240 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

She does not seek her own. I fear by this rule her sway 
is not very conspicuous in modern times. She surely does 
not reveal herself in the temper which declares that busi- 
ness belongs to one domain and religion to another, that 
not only seeks its own but also what belongs to others, and 
whose rule of life outside the church is that of unmitigated 
selfishness. Neither is she manifest in the spirit of of- 
fended dignity that seeks more than is her own in the ac- 
knowledgments demanded from some one who has trans- 
gressed against a fellow-being. On the contrary, it is of 
the nature of love to give. "As the feeble child arms of 
the Christ must have encircled Mary's neck, and now in 
their divine strength embrace the world," so love enfolds 
humanity and conveys benediction with its smile. 

It is the genius of love to give. "God so loved the 
world that He gave His only begotten Son." As the uni- 
verse, symbol of the Creator's heart, is constantly sending 
new light from the sun, rivers from the earth to the sea, 
floods from the sea to the clouds, and rain from the clouds 
to the earth again, so wherever love is she is ever giving 
freely of her possessions and of herself. Explain it as we 
may, she is endued with the power of transmitting her very 
self to the lonely and weary hearts of men and women 
whom she would help and comfort. Naturally, all this 
being true, she is also long-suffering, that is, patient and 
tolerant. 

Faith, taken by itself, is always in danger of the op- 
posite. In proportion as it has been cultivated at the ex- 
pense of affection, it has prepared inquisitions and thumb- 
screws and has perpetrated fanatical crimes. Lecky and 
other rationalists maintain that the intense realization of 
religious doctrines has led priests and churches into whole- 
sale murder. 

Knowledge, also, when unbaptized in affection is likely 



CEOWNING GLOEY OF CHEISTIANITY 241 

to be vain, cold, and critical. It often glitters like ice, 
and is as uncertain. An apostle writes : " Knowledge 
puffeth up, charity edifieth." No disrespect to the mind's 
acquisitions is here intended ; but how much more valua- 
ble would they be if sanctified by affection. Poor Thomas 
Carlyle — how he would writhe in his grave could he hear 
himself called what he called so many, such as Charles 
Lamb — "poor" — and yet this he was, for his mind was 
in a constant state of anarchy and his tongue caustic with 
useless criticisms. Had he only loved both God and man 
more, how much more enduring would the product of his 
genius have been. It is said that the "undevout astrono- 
mer is mad," and I have observed that the scientists who 
manifest reverence for God are not only more intelligible, 
but are more convincing. This I know will be questioned, 
and it will be said that these high themes should be ap- 
proached in the pure spirit of logic. 

It is, however, doubtful, whether this is possible where 
personal relations are concerned. It may be feasible in 
mathematics, but not in a philosophy of the universe. If de- 
manded in thinking of Him whom we have not seen, it is 
also needed in the case of him whom we have seen. We 
are to deal intelligently with others. Without reason we 
shall run into wild sentimentality which will prove fatal to 
those whom we would help, but without love reason will 
judge men in such a way as to do lasting harm. Think, 
for a moment, what would be your estimate of mankind 
were you to lose all charity and compassion of thought. 
You would become practically an enemy of your kind. To 
do your best for others you must allow love its own throne in 
your mind. " Judge as you would be judged, mete as you 
would have it meted unto you," for only in this way can you 
honor others as you would yourself be honored. 

Knowledge often sneers and mocks at the illiterate, and 



242 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

is disposed to withdraw from human intercourse. But the 
attitude of love is different. She realizes the magnitude of 
truth, the difficulties in the way of mastering its secrets, 
the weakness of the intellect, the limiting strength of prej- 
udice, and therefore does not expect complete agreement 
in creeds and is generous in her judgments of those who 
are earnestly seeking the light. She has no index expur- 
gatorius for human thought, however wild or erratic. She 
is as much opposed to coarse denunciation of those who 
may be in error, as she is to inquisitorial suppression of 
free speech — knowing by the divine insight which is hers, 
that it is only through freedom of inquiry and of expression 
that truth triumphs and builds its imperishable throne. 

Love is also distinguished by joyousness and conscien- 
tiousness. Probably she rejoices because she is upright. 
And here we reach a special variation from current notions. 
Generally love is identified with amiability and gentleness, 
and with a sentimental indifference to some radical dis- 
tinctions on which the welfare of society depends. To 
send flowers to murderers, to indulge in maudlin solicitude 
for bank wreckers and defaulters, and to say sweet things 
about movements in society which imperil health and 
morals, and never to protest vigorously against wrong- 
doing and misleading interpretations of the Bible, is taken 
by not a few as the equivalent of love. 

Like Glaucus, the son of Minos, who was smothered in 
honey, many expect that the ethical life of love shall be 
engulfed and stifled by mere sweetness. Hence we have 
clergymen who hardly do anything else than cultivate 
smiles and benignant expressions, who strive to look 
ecstatic, and whose chief aim apparently is to avoid giving 
offense. We do not deny that this grace is naturally joy- 
ous. You are never happy when you hate, or are ill-tem- 
pered, or censorious. Nothing brings so much peace into 



CROWNING GLORY OF CHRISTIANITY 243 

the soul as genuine affection. And this because "it 
taketh not account of evil " — to use the revised text — that 
is, is not perpetually fearing it, anticipating it and expect- 
ing its victory. 

Love cannot for a moment concede that evil in such a 
universe as this, created by a gracious Father, can be any- 
thing more, however real it may be, than a passing shadow 
and tempest. She has the conviction that evil cannot per- 
manently prevail against her, and that she must finally ex- 
terminate evil. Love rejoices, likewise, because she has no 
pleasure in iniquity. That she hates with perfect hatred. 
Never expect her fair lips to say soft things about it or to 
apologize for its inroads and ravages. There is always in- 
tense satisfaction in the consciousness that sin is intolera- 
ble. Truth when it is prized yields additional gladness. 
To hold it, to discover it, to cherish it, contributes to per- 
sonal dignity. How far away the Friends are from this 
spirit we may ourselves judge when they talk their elo- 
quent talk about its being substantially the same whatever 
the mind may believe, and denounce as intolerance what 
is only conviction, and as bigotry what is only enlighten- 
ment. They never indulge in such incoherent and dis- 
jointed speech when the truths of science challenge sub- 
mission, but only when religion states its creed. What- 
ever or whoever may justify this laxity, love does not. She 
must always prize the good and the pure in thought as 
well as activity, and is the last virtue in the universe to 
disparage the value of what God has revealed in His endur- 
ing Word. 

The character of love is crowned with the radiance of 
vicariousness and trustfulness. She bears and endures all 
things. She takes on herself the shame and sorrow of man- 
kind as Jesus took on Himself the world's grief and guilt. 
He bore that He might expiate and expel them ; love en- 



244 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

dures that she may remedy and remove. There has only 
one atonement been offered, but there must be many rec- 
onciliations. Love knows that the race cannot be res- 
cued without sacrifice. Hence, feeling in her sympathy 
the wrong and the woe that afflict the children of Adam, 
she is perpetually travailing in pain for their deliverance. 
The love that never knows tears for the fallen, and agony 
for the wretched — that is only good-natured and genial, 
— is not the love God felt for man when He gave His Son 
to die, and is not the love St. Paul eulogizes here. 

The depth of her sorrow and the intensity of her passion 
do not prevent her from " believing all things and hoping 
all things." She is trustful. It is not for her to doubt. 
She is optimistic. It is not for her to despair. The future 
is hers. She looks into humanity, into the blackness of its 
heart, into the slime and slush of its degradation, into its 
manifold defeats and disasters, and yet believes all things 
to be possible, and that out of the ignoble and the base 
she will be able yet to make a humanity glorious with light 
and beauty. Hoping all things she perseveres upon her 
way, carrying her burden, performing her task, and pray- 
ing for the dawning of the better and endless day. 

Such, then, is love ; and we may now advance to St. 
Paul's final thought by which the supremacy of this grace 
is confirmed — its imperishable influence. "Love never 
faileth." It is the one immortal thing. Faith and hope 
also abide — and yet we can readily foresee the time when 
hope will be fulfilled, and when faith will be lost in sight. 
These three are permanent in the church here and now, 
but when eternity shall dawn it would seem that only love 
would survive, as it is the very life of God, and His chil- 
dren are to be like Him. 

Then there are other things which we esteem and which 
it will outlast. "Whether there be tongues they shall 



CROWNING GLOEY OF CHRISTIANITY 245 

cease." Already many of them have gone dumb, and 
how little value is now attached to what we call eloquence. 
Where are our " cunning orators " ? Demosthenes, Burke, 
Webster, Clay, Gladstone, and the ' ' golden -mo uthed " 
preachers, from the John of Antioch to the Phillips Brooks 
of Boston, have uttered their messages and the voices that 
thrilled the world are hushed forever. Knowledge like- 
wise is transitory. We unlearn to-day what yesterday we 
acquired with pain and labor. Libraries have been out- 
grown, as that of Alexandria was destroyed by fire ; new 
views of the universe, fresh and novel discoveries and ap- 
plication of sciences have quite superseded the wisdom of 
the ancients. We live in a new world, and have buried 
out of sight tomes of old fashioned learning. The scholars 
of the middle ages have been pushed aside for the living 
thought of the modern era. Prophecies, too, cease ; that 
is, the function of the seer has come to an end, or it has 
been perpetuated only in the mission of the pulpit. Even 
there it is destined to pass away. While to the close of 
this dispensation the prophet-preacher may have a mission, 
that likewise must terminate with the triumph of our Lord 
over His foes. 

Love, however, survives all, and cannot perish. That 
shall never fail ! St. Paul declares that when he was a 
child, he "thought as a child and spoke as a child, but 
now he has put away childish things." What does he 
mean by " childish things " ? He is confusing our sense 
of values. The modern man is inclined to regard knowl- 
edge, oratory, power, as things manly, and to sneer at 
affection as effeminate. All this is here reversed. That 
which is now first with the world was second with the 
apostle. It is as though St. Paul said : "I have outgrown 
childhood, but I cannot outgrow love ! Now we only know 
in part, but by and by we shall see face to face, — and 



246 THE MODEBN CKISIS IN RELIGION 

there, while we shall have escaped our earthly limitations 
in every other respect, we shall not have escaped from 
love. 

Nor can we ever dispense with her ministry. There 
comes an hour in every life when she and what she repre- 
sents is all and all to the soul. In sickness, bereavement, 
death, learning has no charm, eloquence no attractions, 
and when prophecies are spoken they fail to arrest atten- 
tion. What care we for fine speeches and declamations 
when the fever is in our blood, or when we are holding in 
a last embrace a wife or child, and of what value to us 
the knowledge that crowns men with honor in the acad- 
emy and gives their names to earthly fame ? These things 
do not appeal to us, or save, or comfort in the hours of 
affliction. They fail. Love never faileth ! It is then we 
cling to her. It is then that she comforts and sustains. 
And if she is with us in the tender ministrations of 
mother, children, friends, if she is revealed to us in the 
compassions of Christ, we can yield with a smile, even 
though all the waves and billows of God's providence 
shall go over us. 

Assuming as we have that faith and hope continue as 
long as the church does, why do we often bewail lost 
power ? Conventions are held to study how Christians can 
regain their hold on the world. Various remedies are pro- 
posed — mainly in the direction of more knowledge, of more 
faith or hope. Occasionally it is set forth that modern 
Christianity needs the renewed power of working miracles, 
of gifts of tongues, or gifts of healing, or gifts of prophe- 
sying, or of interpreting prophecy. From these windy 
meetings the people go home and soon discover that they 
are as weak as ever. Ministers who are scholars, who 
live in their studies and are out of touch with their con- 
gregations, gifted and noble men, wonder why they see 



CROWNING GLORY OF CHRISTIANITY 24f 

no larger results, plunge deeper into their books, and try 
to become more and more orthodox. But of what avail 
their extra orthodoxy? What is the matter? How ex- 
plain the comparative impotence ? Have we not sufficient 
knowledge ? We never had more. Have we not sufficient 
faith ? We have perhaps as much as the church ever had. 
Have we not enough of supernaturalism ? There never 
was more credence in miraculous healings and never more 
professed reliance on supernatural manifestations, from the 
ghosts of spiritualism to the occult mysteries of psycholog- 
ical therapeutics, than at present. 

What the world needs is love ! The church that loves 
most will be most powerful. That is the secret of effi- 
ciency. If she is abandoned, if her gospel is to the multi- 
tude meaningless, it is because she herself by her artificial- 
ities, by her preposterous aristocracies, by her petty 
affectations of social distinction, has created the impression 
that she is ashamed of her crowning glory. 

Perhaps it may tend to cure her of this fatal folly if we 
can make plain why it is that this passion invests her with 
saving potency, and why it is the mightiest and most en- 
during spiritual force in the universe. 

/. There is the majesty of divine power in love. It is 
in God the means by which He expects to subdue all 
things unto Himself. That is the secret of His moral om- 
nipotence. He conquers by love. This is the very pres- 
ent meaning of the gospel. What the thunders of Sinai 
could not do, what the horrors of prolonged captivity 
failed to accomplish, what the inexorable operations of 
nature never achieved, this sweet gospel has wrought for 
millions. A God, throned, crowned, resplendent in glory 
and appalling in omniscience and omnipotence, has not, 
and presumably cannot, bring mankind to reverence His 
authority and accept His sovereignty. But when He steps 



248 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

down from His lofty greatness and lays aside the sceptre, 
and puts His arm round men and women and draws them 
to His bosom and whispers that He is "Father," He is 
irresistible. 

This ideal can never be exhausted. " There is that 
which giveth and yet increaseth," — this is the wonderful 
quality. You give your affection, mother, and you begin 
to compute what sacrifices you have made ; but you rarely 
compute the increase you have gained in spiritual grace 
and discernment. This is the real radium, that strange 
metal whose radiant properties promise to inaugurate a 
new era in healing, literally shining into disease and shin- 
ing it away and which, however much it imparts, suffers 
no diminution of substance. It gives of itself and yet 
loses not ; it surrenders and is not in the least diminished. 
So, the more we love the more love we have in our souls 
for others. The supply is never exhausted, but rather in- 
creases the more it is taxed and depleted. 

No weapon more potent than this. We have been ask- 
ing what is the missing link between the preacher's words 
and the heart of the sinner. I speak it with shame — 
Love ; its absence tells the story Paul said, " The love of 
Christ constraineth me." It may be that we feel more 
than we can express — certainly then our expression is sadly 
at fault. I am oppressed when I think of this. If we 
come into the pulpit and try to look superior to every one 
else, and then rush away, manifesting no interest in any 
one particularly, no wonder that we fail to reach the peo- 
ple. Critics are saying that preachers fail because they 
are not intellectual enough, or are not sufficiently advanced 
in thought. The explanations are all faulty. Let the 
minister love more and he will move and help others more. 

77. There is also the majesty of divine beauty in this 
grace. " Christ is the chiefest among ten thousand." 



CROWNING GLORY OF CHRISTIANITY 249 

God has revealed His benevolence in the beautiful, and 
the beautiful is the image of His benevolence. Real affec- 
tion always tries to express itself similarly. In divine 
worship we bring the tribute of our music, or our flowers, 
— even one poor flower may mean much — and seek to 
make everything attractive in the sanctuary. So in our 
human relations, love tries to make everything beautiful. 
It adorns the home, adds a touch of color here and there, 
the presence of some garden trophies. When a wife pro- 
fesses it for a husband, or a mother for her child and is 
willing to leave everything untidy, gloomy, neglected ; or 
when a father is harsh and glum and never thinks of help- 
ing, something is radically wrong. In impoverished homes 
I have noticed the difference ; in one the pathetic endeavor 
to make all charming, in the other, to leave everything 
unclean and hideous. 

I once read of a school where there was a very plain 
girl. Somewhat cruelly her companions would remind her 
of her lack in attractions. The school-teacher saw the 
depressing effect on her of this treatment. One day she 
handed her a coarse lump covered with black earth, and 
said: "This is like yourself; only plant it." The 
schoolgirl took it home and obeyed, not understanding. 
Out of it grew a Japanese lily. Then she perceived. 
And in the progress of time love in her soul imparted a 
heavenly charm to her character and to her face as well. 
There is a northern legend which tells how a man believed 
himself followed by an evil being. He lost his property 
through a storm and his first-born died. Then he deter- 
mined that he would find the monster who had injured 
him. Day and night he watched for him. He lay in wait 
for him. At last he saw him and rushed upon him. A very 
terrible struggle ensued, and it seemed as though he must 
perish. But gathering up his strength he seized the crea- 



250 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

ture and turned back his head to gash his throat — and 
then the moon shone out. What do you think he saw in 
the face of the beast ? He saw his own face. And the 
legend teaches that it was himself who was his own enemy, 
and that he had ruined all by his own selfishness. 

III. There is the majesty of divine serenity in love. 
We always associate a holy calm with God. When it is 
said that "a thousand years with Him are as one day," 
we immediately think of Him as moving reposefully. Our 
Saviour in all the strain of His tempted and tempestuous 
life invited the world to come to Him for rest. Wherever 
there is hate there must be agitation, uncertainty, and pos- 
sible anarchy. Peace comes when we are at peace with 
the God of peace, and with our fellow-beings. It is this 
spirit which makes the lives of many saints so fascinating. 
Take, for instance, Columba. He renounced the warlike 
frenzy of his youth and became a leader in the creative 
arts of peace and the preacher of supernatural hopes. He 
made Iona a centre of light and loveliness. And when 
He came to die his end was full of holy quietness. He 
sent this message to his spiritual children : "Let peace 
and charity, a charity mutual and sincere, reign always 
among you." St. Cuthbert also was gentle and composed. 
During his wanderings when his followers were sad, he 
would say: "Never did man hunger who served God 
faithfully ; ' ' and beholding the eagle above, he would 
add: "by it even food can come." When a snow-storm 
in Fife hedged him in, one said to him : " The snow 
closes the road along the shore to us; " another added : 
"The storm bars our way over the sea." St. Cuthbert 
answered: "There is still the way of heaven that lies 
open." 

We surely need no further account of the wondrous 
potency of love. It, and it alone, allies the individual and 



CROWNING GLORY OF CHRISTIANITY 251 

the church with the heart of God Himself, and brings man- 
kind, as can be done in no other way, to feel its fatherly 
pulsations. Herein lies the secret of saving power, and 
when Christianity shall be fully alive to this truth the pres- 
ent religious crisis will give place to a genuine revival. 

In the meanwhile there is a danger against which I must 
raise my voice in warning. Instead of cultivating this 
grace and relying on it more and more, Christian people 
may come to underestimate its worth, and at last may sin 
against it. The sin against love, who can compute its 
guilt ? Is there not in it something akin to the sin against 
the Holy Spirit ? 

During the persecutions of the sixteenth century that dis- 
graced England, a condemned man escaped and was re- 
ceived by a nonconformist woman into her house. She 
watched over him until the immediate peril was over. He 
left her hospitable roof and betrayed her ; and as the one 
who afforded shelter to a heretic was deemed by the church 
as equally worthy of punishment, she was arrested and 
went to the stake. The miserable informer was permitted 
to go unharmed, and she paid the penalty. But as she 
was allowed to say a few words before her heartless judges, 
she exclaimed : " Many have died for faith ; it is befitting 
that one die for love." Thus she magnified the crowning 
glory of Christianity, but the miserable traitor had trans- 
gressed against it beyond the hope of forgiveness. 

There is a remarkable poem entitled "The Leper 
Priest," that renders even more vivid than this pathetic 
episode the enormity and deadliness of this sin. The poem 
celebrates the abundant and self-denying labors of Father 
Damien, who consecrated himself for many years in the 
spirit of the Moravian missionaries to the spiritual conso- 
lation and temporal improvement of the leper community 
of Molokai. He died at Kalawa, April 10, 1889. The 



252 THE MODEEN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

poet represents this man of God as anxious to visit his 
home. He engages passage on a ship, but the sailors, not- 
withstanding his heroic devotion to humanity, will not per- 
mit him to continue with them, and put him ashore on a 
lonely island. They thrust him out. God witnesses the 
crime. A storm suddenly sweeps the sea, and the vessel 
is driven towards the land. It is buffeted by the waves 
and dashed on the surf-tormented rocks around the island, 
and the priest, who had been abandoned to a miserable 
fate, appears on the scene and rescues the crew. Thus 
has he again returned good for evil. He hastens from the 
presence of those he has befriended, and after awhile the 
seamen, pushing their way inland, find his body — dead. 

" Then all was dark ; the green boughs waved o'erhead : 
With trembling limbs and reeling to and fro, 
They left the presence of the mighty dead 
"With leprosy upon them white as snow." 

They, too, had sinned against love ! 

Do we as lightly esteem it ? Is it nothing to us that a 
man is swayed by a divine passion for others ? Are we 
disposed to sneer at his sublime self-forgetfulness, be he a 
Livingston, a St. Francis, or a Moffat ? Do we mockingly 
crucify the Christ again, or count as unimportant the great 
principle by which He was moved ? And when love shel- 
ters us, feeds and nourishes us, guards us from foes in 
youth and age, and brings to us the light of the blessed 
gospel, how do we reciprocate and repay? Have we 
proven ourselves to be unworthy of her ministrations and 
responded with bitterness and scorn, and wounded and 
betrayed the love that succored ? 

These are solemn questions to be answered. They can- 
not be ignored. Christianity and the world alike are con- 
cerned with them. If the former shall forget the meaning 



CKOWNING GLOKY OF CHEISTIANITY 253 

of the Christ who died, and if she shall put away from her 
His example and His spirit ; if the latter shall thrust aside 
the church that has gone down into its filth and pollution 
to save its children — then shall neither escape the penalty 
of their sin, but both shall be driven into the new time 

" With leprosy upon them white as snow." 



XI 

RECOVERY OF THE LOST REVELATION 

" I have found the Book of the Law in the house of the Lord." — 
2 Kings 22 : 8. 

A MEMORABLE discovery truly, and one surpass- 
ing in value the discovery of continents or north- 
west passages ; for the moral life of the world is 
of larger import than the increase of territorial possessions, 
and the opening of the way from the sea of time to the 
ocean of eternity is of higher significance than an open 
waterway thoroughfare from the Atlantic to the Pacific. 

When this event described concisely in the text occurred 
the world powers of the age were profoundly agitated, and 
the political atmosphere everywhere was surcharged with 
the sultry premonitions of coming storm. Egypt was rest- 
less and was seeking foreign alliances against threatening 
foes. Nineveh was being crushed by Cyaxares and 
Nabopolassar and her prolonged infamy hastened to 
an ignominious close. Gog and Magog were emerging on 
the field of history in the north, nomad Scythians, from 
whom later on were to descend Genghis Khan and Tamer- 
lane with incomputable and indescribable sanguinary 
horrors following in their train. Judah herself was torn by 
moral dissensions and by public and private corruption, 
which impaired her national strength and exposed her to 
the inroads of her enemies. Everywhere, even in sacred 
places, were exhibited signs of religious and ethical deterio- 
ration. The Temple sheltered vessels made for Baal, for 

354 



RECOVERY OF LOST REVELATION 255 

the Asherah, and the phallic emblem itself was not absent. 
Idolatry prevailed. Not only was incense offered to the 
signs of the Zodiac, but the base and cruel deities of the 
eastern world were honored with sacrifices which involved 
the loss of personal dignity and self-respect. 

It was then when righteousness had reached its lowest 
ebb, it was then when Zephaniah and Jeremiah were utter- 
ing their loudest complaints and protests somewhere be- 
tween the years 639 and 608 b. a, — Moller placing it as 
623 and Whitelaw at 621, — that Hilkiah came to Shaphan 
and said : "I have found the Book of the Law in the house 
of the Lord." 

Josiah was then king of Judah. He began to reign at 
the early age of eight, and it is recorded of him that " he 
walked in the way of David his father," and "turned not 
aside to the right hand or to the left." As he matured he 
was oppressed by the awful wickedness of the land, and 
when only twenty years old was convinced that the evil 
tide must in some way be stemmed. He had been told by 
the few faithful men about him that society was a " seeth- 
ing cauldron," a "broken cistern," holding no water, and 
was destined to be overcome by an enemy "whose char- 
iots should be as the whirlwind," and he determined on a 
prompt and thorough reformation. Straightway he ordered 
that the Temple, which had been neglected for over two 
hundred years, or since it had been repaired by Joash, 
should be renovated and cleansed. Something of his con- 
tagious zeal was caught by Shaphan and Hilkiah and many 
of the people. Subscriptions were freely offered for the 
repairs and the high priest gladly busied himself in sum- 
ming up the money and in superintending the work. And 
it was while thus employed that he found, hidden among 
the litter and rubbish that had accumulated during the long 
period of neglect, the Book of the Law, the recovery of 



256 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

which in that far off time meant so much to the Hebrews 
then, and to the religious development of the world in all 
after ages. 

The immediate result of the discovery was remarkable, 
but unhappily, for reasons that will appear later on, was 
not enduring. Hilkiah delivered the restored book to 
Shaphan and he read it, and then carried it to the king 
and read it before his royal Master. Josiah was startled 
and terrified by the contents of the revelation, particularly 
by the curses therein recorded, and in his perplexity con- 
sulted Shaphan and his son Ahikam and Abdon and Asa- 
hiah, and the prophetess Huldah. The answer of the 
woman was not encouraging. She confirmed the threat- 
enings of the law, and declared that they would be fulfilled, 
though God would show favor to Josiah on account of his 
uprightness and piety. Her reply and the exigency of the 
hour led to a great religious and social upheaval. 

The king called the priests and people together and 
standing on a platform read " all the words of the Book of 
the Covenant which had been found in the house of the 
Lord." The result of the reading was a solemn agree- 
ment to walk in the ways of Jehovah. Steps were taken 
to relieve the land from the blight of idolatry. Its em- 
blems and symbols were hurriedly expelled from the Tem- 
ple, the sun-chariots were burned in the fire, the altars to 
the stars built on the roof of the chamber of Ahaz were des- 
troyed, and the shrines consecrated to the deities of Sidon, 
Ammon and Moloch were swept away. The tempest of 
reforming enthusiasm having reached its height, the king 
ordered the Passover to be celebrated according to the 
rules laid down in the recovered book, and in such a man- 
ner as had not been known in Israel since the times of the 
Judges. 

Here on a small scale we have exhibited a picture of what 



RECOVERY OF LOST REVELATION 257 

the Bible has done and is yet capable of doing on the larger 
stage of general history. It has quickened and intensified 
religious activity, has stimulated and prompted national re- 
form, has inspired and kindled literary genius, and has 
aroused and exalted the energies and ambitions of multi- 
tudes. What it has done it is still fitted to do ; and if 
there is a decline in spiritual vigor, if church attendance 
has fallen off, and if society in any appreciable measure 
has become materialized and is serving gilded idols, it is 
due in no small degree to what is taking place in many cir- 
cles to obscure the real significance of the Scriptures and 
to impair their authority. There is a sense in which it is 
true that the Bible is a lost book to-day, and is in danger 
of being yet further hidden from general view by accumu- 
lating rubbish of one kind and another. It is this impres- 
sion and the belief that the church ought to take serious 
cognizance of what is going on, and if possible provide a 
remedy, that impels me to speak in this sermon on the 

Recovery of the Lost Revelation 
It may prove of interest to the student, and may not be 
useless in the discussion that follows, if a reliable conclu- 
sion can be reached as to the identity of the book discov- 
ered by Hilkiah. But before I take up this question, espe- 
cially as I must examine it within narrow limits, I would 
quote an assurance of Professor Harnack's which may serve 
to quiet apprehension regarding the ultimate outcome of 
present critical controversies. He says : 

" There was a time — the general public indeed have not 
got beyond it — in which the oldest Christian literature, in- 
cluding the New Testament, was looked upon as a tissue 
of deceptions and forgeries. That time is passed. For 
science, it was an episode in which it learned much, and 
after which it has much to forget. . . . The oldest 



258 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

literature of the church in all main points and in most de- 
tails, from the point of view of literary criticism, is genuine 
and trustworthy." 

Accepting this statement as entitled to the highest re- 
spect, on account of the scholarship of the author, I am 
emboldened to maintain on the authority of internal evi- 
dence that the volume restored in the reign of Josiah was 
not merely the whole or a part of Deuteronomy, as set forth 
by Wellhausen in his " Prolegomena," but that section of 
the Bible known as the Pentateuch. 

If the conclusion reached by Harnack is " worthy of all 
acceptation," we must at once dismiss the idea of forgery. 
The book, whether only Deuteronomy or more, claims to 
have been prepared in the time of Moses and in portions 
to have been penned by the lawgiver. As, according to 
Harnack, deception must be ruled out, we cannot concur 
with those higher critics who hold " that it was produced 
at the time in which it was discovered." To assume this 
position is to charge Jeremiah, Josiah, and all interested in 
the reformation with deliberate falsification and corruption, 
that is, with a tricky procedure which their characters 
repudiate. 

Klostermann and Kohler have hesitated to countenance 
such an imputation which would shake our confidence in 
the whole fabric of revelation, and Moller indignantly re- 
jects it. No inducement existed for the perpetration of 
such a forgery. People do not willingly pretend to have 
discovered books which only make plainer their infamy, and 
which in the name of Almighty God condemn them. 
Neither do officials, such as priests, manufacture documents 
that expose their faithlessness and hold them up to public 
scorn. Yet, on the supposition that the alleged discovery 
was only a pious fraud, we have the phenomenon of a com- 
munity, in love with idolatry and base to the core, lending 



RECOVERY OF LOST REVELATION 259 

itself to a fabrication which scathingly denounced them 
and their wickedness. Kautzsch attributes its origin to the 
priests, and Kuenen, another destructive critic, credits it 
to the prophets ; but their arguments are destructive of 
each other, and lead to the inference that the book was not 
prepared by either, and must have been far more ancient 
than the days of Josiah. 

With the rejection of the pseudepigraphic theory the con- 
tention also is discredited that the book was evidently pre- 
pared with the express object in view which it achieved — 
the reformation of the people. For an examination of 
Deuteronomy alone shows that it was written for the pur- 
pose of shaping a nation in its earliest period, and not to 
meet conditions that existed in the seventh century before 
Christ. Moreover, it should be remembered that Hilkiah 
was surprised at the discovery, and in describing it em- 
ployed the definite article — the Book of the Law — implying 
that he had heard of such a law, though he may not have 
seen it, and that it was the complete law, not merely a part 
of it. No ; all the facts go to show that it existed long be- 
fore the times of Josiah, and in the growing defection from 
God and righteousness had ceased to be read and valued, 
and so had been laid away by some discouraged priest in 
the Temple, where it had in the course of a hundred or 
more years been buried out of sight beneath the rubbish 
naturally accumulating. 

Confirming these suppositions, we should bear in mind 
that this book, called in one place the " Book of the Law," 
and in another "Book of the Covenant," x could not very 
well have been composed at the period of its alleged resto- 
ration as it contains commands which had long before been 
obeyed, and alludes to tribes as existing which had already 

1 2 Kings, 22 : 8, 1 1 j 23 : 2, 21, 



260 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

been exterminated. In Deuteronomy there are warnings 
against Canaanitish worship, orders also that these people 
are to be extirpated and directions explicit and merciless 
for the blotting out of the Amalekites. But both the wor- 
ship and the doomed people had been swept from the face 
of earth centuries gone. It is singular if the author of this 
book wrote in the times of Josiah that he should repeatedly 
write of things and persons as existing when they were ex- 
tinct, and never once mention a king, or Jerusalem, or any 
other of the characteristic features of his own age, though 
they were prominent and marked. That the Scriptures 
thus restored included more than Deuteronomy can easily 
be made out by what is said in the Chronicles regarding 
the new observance of the Passover. For Deuteronomy 
does not contain the directions which Josiah evidently fol- 
lowed. He must have consulted Exodus, Leviticus or 
Numbers for the specific details which he minutely and 
with such lavish generosity carried out. It would seem, 
also, as though he must have gone to them for instructions 
regarding his relations towards the prevailing idolatries of 
the land. While it is to be conceded that Deuteronomy 
alone could have furnished all that he needed in the way 
of motive and guidance for this special iconoclastic task, 
still the parallels between what he did and what is written 
in Exodus 34 : 13 ; Leviticus 26 : 10 ; 20 : 25 ; 19 : 31 ; 
Numbers ^: 52, creates the impression that he had been 
directly influenced by these records. 

I am particular in upholding the view that the book 
found was the entire Pentateuch, because on any other 
supposition it is not easy to account for what followed. 
As we have seen, things were done which are not com- 
manded in Deuteronomy; and an effect was produced 
which would hardly have been brought about by the read- 
ing of the meagre portions which Kautzsch and Kuenen 



RECOVERY OF LOST REVELATION 261 

insist made up the document when it was brought to light 
by Hilkiah. For these critics and their school will not 
admit that the whole of Deuteronomy, as we now have it, 
was then recovered, but only a small portion, and that sub- 
sequent additions have made it what it is. That this at- 
tenuated revelation, this detached scrap — itself, according 
to the critics, essentially an imposition — could have so ap- 
pealed to the imagination and to the moral nature of a peo- 
ple as debased as they were in the reign of Josiah, and 
should so mightily have moved them, is both inconceivable 
and incredible. The cause ought to be proportionate to 
the effect ; and the reformation under Josiah seems to de- 
mand the Pentateuch as a whole, not the mere fragment 
of one of its parts. 

We may learn, then, for our own guidance and in our 
own day to refrain from such extremes of criticism as re- 
duce the Bible to a shadow of its real self, depriving it of 
much of its substance, more of its coherence, and all of its 
divine authority. The wonder is expressed that apparently 
the Scriptures are not studied by the laity as formerly, that 
their solemn warnings are treated so cavalierly by the gen- 
eral public, and that so many young people should be as 
ignorant as they are of their contents. Wherefore this 
amazement ? What more reasonable than that the book 
should be neglected, when according to certain scholars 
it settles nothing and perpetually gives rise to Pilate's 
question — "Quid est Veritas?" — and is only inspired 
in a way that authenticates nothing and guarantees 
less. 

The world will not study it for the sake of its literary 
excellencies, nor for the charm it may possess as a museum 
of antique customs and religious observances; and it 
grows weary and disheartened when it turns to the venera- 
ble volume to find that the higher critics have written 



262 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

doubt large over much that ministered hope and peace to 
former generations. 

Then Carpenter 1 intensifies this indisposition as far as 
the ordinary reader is concerned, by writing : 

"In insisting that the Bible must be interpreted in the 
light of historical imagination, modern study has not made 
it an easy book for the casual reader. It sometimes re- 
quires us to realize antique forms of belief from which the 
thought of to-day has moved far away ; it carries us among 
distant people who interpreted life in terms often widely 
different from ours." 

Why undertake to overcome these difficulties ? If we 
could be sure of gaining substantial advantage and certain 
knowledge of God and eternal life, these and other ob- 
structions would be gladly surmounted. But when we 
have only trouble and no appreciable profit why tax our 
energies ? 

The belief, now fermenting in the public mind is not 
realized by the destructive critics and their allies, that 
when the whole character of the Bible has been changed 
by the modern rationalizing methods, then "we part com- 
pany with the root doctrines of Christian dogma, the In- 
carnation and the Resurrection, and the whole edifice must 
go." Multitudes have with undue haste concluded that 
this disastrous climax has been already reached, and con- 
sequently they have lost all interest in the Bible and the 
sweet talk about the poetic charm of the volume, its moral 
elevation and legendary attractions, will never restore them 
to the attitude of reverence for its teachings which distin- 
guished their sires. It is only when the Scriptures are 
honored as having God for their author, truth for their 
substance, and salvation here and hereafter for their end, 

1,f Bible in Nineteenth Century," p. 511. 



RECOVERY OF LOST REVELATION 263 

that their divine authority is recognized and their contents 
eagerly studied and prized. 

It would seem from these reflections that the recovery 
of Revelation is as important in our time as it was in the 
days of Josiah. 

Yes ; and it may not be amiss to recall the fact, if for 
no other reason, at least by way of encouragement, that 
there have been other periods when the sacred books were 
shut up, hidden, practically lost to mankind, and were 
found and restored again. They had not perished ; neither 
can they ; and though their present condition may not cor- 
respond to any former vicissitude, we may have confidence 
to expect that they will rise superior to whatever miscon- 
ceptions or misrepresentations now conceal their inspired 
glories. 

The old picture of Martin Luther, standing before a copy 
of the Scriptures carefully chained to a wall in a crypt, is 
suggestive. The gospel then did not have free course. 
It was not only bound by iron, but it was sunken from the 
eyes of the common people in the inexplorable depths, 
of the dead languages. The Roman Church boasts 
that through the dark ages she safely preserved the 
Word of God. So she did. She kept it securely locked 
up in an unknown tongue, and fastened by chains in 
her vaulted chambers. It is her boast that she kept, 
and it is the higher boast of Protestants that they 
gave; and had Catholicism done so possibly the world 
would never have been afflicted with the dark ages. It is 
singular that she has never yet felt the shame that is in- 
volved in her withholding from the masses the volume God 
bestowed on them for their guidance and comfort. Wyclif, 
Tyndale, Erasmus, Reuchlin, Luther, Melancthon and the 
Westminster divines found the old book in the Temple, 
rescued it from an enormous rubbish heap of traditions and 



264 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

decrees, and restored it to the world through the magnifi- 
cent translations which they made. Then modern history- 
began. 

Another season of eclipse occurred — something over a 
century ago. When mediocrity was afflicting England, 
revolution was convulsing France, and the United States 
of America were entering on national life, the Bible had 
been pushed aside, was little studied, and was not gener- 
ally circulated. Copies of the Scriptures were not abun- 
dant. Charles Bala tells how a child walked many miles to 
find one that she might ascertain the minister's text. The 
people were perishing for lack of knowledge. With the 
beginning of the Sunday-school, the church entered on 
another era of Bible recovery. Societies were formed for 
its multiplication and distribution. Within one hundred 
years the British and Foreign Bible Society has issued a 
hundred and seventy-five million copies ; and the American 
society has issued a million a year for seventy-five years. 
The output last year of both agencies was five millions, and 
it has been reported that the demand for the Word is still 
increasing. At no former period in the world's history 
have so many Bibles been printed, and never were they so 
easily within the reach of all classes of society. 

This restoration, if the term may be used, is gratifying 
and encouraging, and were it only equalled by the avidity 
of the people to read and understand, and were it not im- 
paired by the critical and expository tendencies of our 
times, we might begin to feel that the Book had really been 
found at last. Unhappily this comfort is not for us. As 
fast as it has been freed on the one hand it has been bound 
on the other. Again is it being hidden from view, shut up 
in one way or another, and the gravity of the situation is 
such that in view of it Prof. Goldwin Smith has been con- 
strained to write : 



RECOVERY OF LOST REVELATION 265 

"The Reformation was a tremendous earthquake; it 
shook down the fabric of mediaeval religion, and as a con- 
sequence of the disturbance in the religious sphere, filled 
the world with revolutions and wars. But it left the au- 
thority of the Bible unshaken, and men might feel that the 
destructive process had its limit and that adamant was still 
beneath their feet. But a world that is intellectually and 
keenly alive to the significance of these questions, reading 
all that is written about them with almost passionate avid- 
ity, finds itself brought to a crisis, the character of which 
any one may realize by distinctly presenting to himself the 
idea of existence without a God." 

So tremendous are the issues of the hour growing out of 
the present critical agitations. The Bible is once more 
becoming rapidly a lost revelation, and its recovery a con- 
cern of the highest import. What ought to be done may 
be gathered from what warrants such a representation as 
this. 

The Bible is partly lost beneath the rubbish of wild 
interpretations. This dangerous pursuit is not modern 
and is as old as man's presumption and folly. It has been 
of frequent occurrence, since the beginning of Christianity, 
for erratic and ecstatic souls to impart their lawless frenzies 
to the Scripture, insist that they originated therein, and 
were there disclosed in language which grammatically ex- 
pounded had no more reference to their flighty ideas than 
it has to "lunar politics," or solar sociologies. There 
have been serious teachers who have solemnly assured the 
world that Napoleon III is distinctly revealed under cer- 
tain cryptic signs ; that the angel standing with " one foot 
on the land and the other on the sea " is undoubtedly the 
United States, and that the church is to be caught up and 
left suspended, notwithstanding the law of gravitation, for 
three years in the air. One writer — and he has many 



266 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

followers — has located the to-be-famed field of Armageddon 
in the Mississippi Valley, and has demonstrated to his own 
patriotic satisfaction that the combined forces of Europe 
are to be defeated there by an indignant and righteous 
American nation. Others have elaborated abstruse sys- 
tems of symbolisms and correspondences by which we are 
to make out what the Scriptures teach, not by what they 
say, but by what the recondite method of determining 
holds that they ought to say. Into no other book do so 
many people thrust their crude, bewildering fancies as into 
the Bible, and when I realize how common a thing it is for 
multitudes of excellent people to seek their own ideas there 
while they profess to be seeking God's, I wonder whether 
they can have as much confidence in the inspiration of the 
volume as in their own. 

If judged by the garish, lurid and extravagant interpre- 
tations or by the childish and petty notions of its revelation 
circulated among the people, the Bible must appear to the 
sober and reflective portion of the community as a very 
shallow, confusing sensational sort of production, hardly 
entitled to serious thought. There are two objects well 
fitted to impair respect for the Bible and to indispose the 
mind towards its message ; the one is a map or diagram of 
the course of empire illustrated by the picture of a man 
with a golden head and feet of iron and clay, and the 
other is a polychromatic copy of the book itself. That the 
book has retained a measurable degree of influence, not- 
withstanding these cheapening performances is undoubtedly 
due to its divine origin and character. Were it not of 
God these monstrous and ridiculous doings must have 
buried it in oblivion long ago. But as it is, these colored 
sections, these grotesque images, and these vapid and 
freakish expositions, hide the real Bible from the people. 

They see them, not it. What it actually is they know 



RECOVERY OF LOST REVELATION 267 

not, and in many instances when it is mentioned it is at 
once associated, not with its noble disclosures of the divine 
and the eternal, but with what is absurd and unintelligible. 
All this wood, hay and stubble must be swept away if it is 
to be restored to its lawful place in the religious develop- 
ment of the future. The question Christendom has to 
answer is whether it can afford any longer to have the 
chief source of its authority and teaching caricatured, 
which is to all intents and purposes as grave a misde- 
meanor as to chain it once more to the stone pillar in the 
vaulted crypt ; for in both instances the world is robbed of 
it as the light of life. It is now common in some quarters 
to condemn without stint the higher criticism, and in some 
respects it is worthy of harsh rebuke. In my opinion, 
however, its excesses are not as perilous to the supremacy 
of the Scriptures as are the lawless and fantastic interpre- 
tations whose name is legion, and whose influence is 
destructive of reverence and confidence. 

The Bible is also partly lost under the weight of specious 
and glittering idolatries. It is to be remembered that 
according to the narrative we have been studying, false 
deities had quite usurped the place of the Holy Oracles. 
These trifling gods of their symbols filled the Temple, and 
the worshipper did not even look for anything better or 
higher. All the while this great treasure of truth was 
near by and was neither seen nor valued. We, too, have 
our paltry idolatries, and the commerce or the pleasure we 
have exalted to the chief place makes us quite indifferent 
to the diviner gift that lies neglected on the table. Sad it 
is, but true, that the taste may be so cultivated for the 
lower that we may come to esteem it the higher, while the 
higher is treated as though it were the lower. Many a 
devotee at the shrine of Thespus, and many a follower of 
Plutus, the son of Jason, imagines himself the wisest of 



268 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

mortals, and looks with commiseration on those who derive 
their joys from heavenly sources. 

In some instances the shadow of the church obscures the 
sacred volume, and we listen to her and ignore it. She 
fills the entire scene with her processionings, her pomps 
and display, her pretended apostolic origin and infalli- 
bility, and with the finery of her bishops and cardinals, 
and her dazzling splendor quite eclipses the softer but 
truer light of God's revelation. To the Roman Catholic 
the Bible occupies a secondary place and is of inferior 
importance to the church. The church is first and 
supreme, and she assumes the right to interpret the book, 
not accoiding to the light that is in it, but according to 
what she regards as the higher light in herself. Hence, in 
Roman Catholic countries, the Bible, even the Catholic 
version, is not in general circulation, and no societies 
exist for its distribution. It is a priestly possession, to be 
occasionally referred to, but not to be made free to the 
masses. As in pre- Reformation days it was securely bound 
and imprisoned in churches and cloisters, so now it is kept 
out of sight and is lost to communicants in the Catholic 
church through the Papal interdict, which, with shame be it 
recorded, practically enters it in the Index E xpur gator ius. 

The idolatry of sacerdotalism is pernicious, but in its 
baneful consequences it may be seconded by what has 
been termed " the idolatry of the letter." It is possible to 
turn the attention from the soul of revelation to the form 
and to be so intent on the latter as to miss the meaning of 
the former. Reading the account of what followed Josiah's 
reformation and his death, we discover that the high moral 
strain was too great for the people and that a reaction set 
in. Ewald, with this deplorable retrogression in mind, 
suggests this explanation : 

" Since it," — the Book of the Law — " was regarded as 



RECOVERY OF LOST REVELATION 269 

a State authority, there early arose a kind of book science, 
with its pedantic pride and erroneous learned endeavors to 
interpret and apply the Scriptures. At the same time 
there arose also a new kind of hypocrisy and idolatry of 
the letter, through the new protection which the State 
gave to the religion of the book acknowledged by the 
law." 

The volume was looked up to as a god, was placed on a 
pedestal and reverenced. Outwardly it was honored, but 
its inner and deeper spirit was despised. Hence, Jere- 
miah, who had urged the people to observe all the words 
of this Covenant, now appeals to them to trust Jehovah 
and not to trust the recently discovered law. From strict 
literalism he launches into splendid and impassioned 
encomiums on the spiritual side of the divine revelation, 
and in his fervid utterances we seem to hear the antici- 
pation of our Lord's assertion, " the letter killeth, the 
spirit giveth life." 

There was a time, and the time is not wholly past, when 
a similar misconception obscured the real character of the 
Scriptures and impaired their hold on intelligent people. 
Verbal inspiration was once proclaimed far and near, by 
which it was maintained that every word, every phrase, 
and punctuation mark, and chapter heading were dictated 
as they stand, or are supposed to stand, in Hebrew and 
Greek originals, by the Holy Spirit — verbatim et literatim. 
Though the difficulties in the way of this theory were 
pointed out, and though it was shown that loyal evangel- 
ical teachers, like Martin Luther, refused it their support, 
though it was demonstrated that it made God respon- 
sible for sayings and deeds utterly irreconcilable with His 
nature, still its friends were so infatuated that they would 
not yield. The letter was their idol, and rather than sac- 
rifice that, they were ready to subscribe to the most in- 



2Y0 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

credible representations and representations disproved by 
science and were willing that the fair fame of the Almighty 
should suffer loss. Neither did they perceive that their 
apprehension of the Scriptures reacted on themselves and 
tended to make them narrow and unexpansive in thought 
and feeling. 

This idolatry is happily ending, but it still is accepted by 
many of our Lord's followers. To the extent of its adop- 
tion is the world deprived of the Bible ; for the Bible of 
verbal inspiration is not the true Bible. It is a mechanical, 
magical, material article, as different from the genuine 
original as a portrait by Rembrandt is from an ordinary 
photograph. Efforts should be put forth that men and 
women everywhere may see this distinction. At present 
thousands of them cannot bring themselves to study the 
Scriptures because they are under the impression that they 
must except the findings of the extreme literalists. Let 
pulpit and teacher take pains to show that inspiration does 
not necessitate strict dictation ; nay, that is not inspira- 
tion at all. 

The stenographer who takes down the poem dictated by 
the genius of Tennyson is not inspired. He may be as 
devoid of feeling and emotion as his own fountain pen. It 
is the poet that is conscious of the divine afflatus, and of 
this, is born in him the images and expressions which are 
his own and which bear the marks of his distinctive per- 
sonality. So, merely to record automatically a heavenly 
communication is not, whatever else it may be, inspiration. 
True inspiration is always the impartation of God to the 
creature in such a way as to work by and speak through 
the free conscious exercise of the soul's powers and facul- 
ties. Some such definition as this ought to be pressed on 
the attention of the world ; for it recognizes the plan and 
power of the Almighty, does not necessitate the infallibility 



RECOVERY OF LOST REVELATION 271 

of the human intermediary, and serves to place the Bible 
in such a light as to command the respectful attention of 
mankind. 

// must also be added that the Bible is now partly lost 
among the confusion of extreme and contradictory criti- 
cisms. This is too large a subject for successful treatment 
here. I can only undertake to illustrate my thought and 
perhaps some one else may deal with it in a manner more 
exhaustive and scholarly. 

The plea is sometimes put forth by the higher critics that 
they are rescuing the Bible from the hands of the Philis- 
tines, and are restoring it to its true and original form. 
They think we ought to be grateful. Let me hasten to 
assure them that we are ; that is, we are grateful for what- 
ever they may have done to make good their avowed in- 
tention, and we are not indifferent to the valuable contri- 
butions they have made to a better understanding of the 
Word of God. We do not ch allege their motives, but we 
must question the soundness of their method ; and we do 
so because we observe that on the whole their labors have 
resulted in numerous extreme and contradictory criticisms 
which impair our confidence in the Bible as being in any 
real sense a divine revelation, and which render obscure or 
doubtful some of its fundamental teachings. Instead of 
their bringing the Scriptures nearer to the common life of 
mankind as they claim, they have removed them farther, 
so far that the ordinary intelligent man, willing to be 
guided by higher criticism, admits that by its canons he 
can make nothing out of them. They are to him a lost 
book. 

Professor Cheyne, in the "Nineteenth Century " * calls 
Abraham a " lunar hero," and this is quite confusing in 

1 January, 1902. 



272 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

view of the fact that Christ refers to him as a historical 
personage, and that the history of Israel is inexplicable 
apart from his being a veritable character. Moreover, as far 
as I can judge, the evidence for this singular opinion is 
purely negative. Nothing has as yet been found outside 
of the sacred narrative to verify his existence, and hence 
he did not exist. 

" There is no sufficient warrant for supposing individ- 
uals, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to have been the ancestors 
of the people. Isaac and Abraham are as yet unaccounted 
for — that is, we know of no tribes or clans that bore these 
names. Probably both were creations of the legend-build- 
ing imagination, working under the necessities of the pa- 
triarchal theory. Abraham as a type of the believer in 
God reveals the religious faith of the author who drew his 
picture." 1 

The assertion of the English Wellhausen, though only 
the echo of what Winckler has said before him, is about as 
worthy of credence as his wild talk about Jerahmeel, and 
it has been shown that were we to deal with the text of the 
Old Testament as Professor Cheyne does, we could invent 
any theory we please, and it would be as plausible as his 
Jerahmeel and as little entitled to confidence. 

Let any one carefully read in the last volume of the " En- 
cyclopedia Biblica " the articles dealing with Old and New 
Testament literature, and he will be impressed with the 
contradictory character of much that is advanced by emi- 
nent scholars. Having perused these articles, I am per- 
suaded, if they are reliable — and that they are not may be 
inferred as they fail to agree in their statements, — that not 
only must we reject the authorship of Moses, Isaiah, and 
the rest, but we must as well reject the authorship of the 

" « See Old Testament History," p. 50, Prof. H. P. Smith, D. D. 



RECOVERY OF LOST REVELATION 273 

Almighty ; for as He is the God of order and not of con- 
fusion, He could have had nothing to do with the produc- 
tion of such fragmentary and incoherent literature. 

What of reliable information can be derived from the 
treatment to which our Lord's temptation is subjected in 
the "Biblica"? Dr. Moffat gives one explanation and 
Dr. Cheyne another. The first writer regards the tempta- 
tion as a parabolic account of an actual occurrence in the 
early life of Christ; the second represents it as an en- 
deavor on the part of Jesus by fasting to overcome the powers 
of darkness, parallel with attempts made in the East by 
similar means to conquer the jinns. Anything, ready to be- 
lieve anything, however fantastic and shadowy, rather than 
accept the narrative as historic in its essential features. 

Then we are told by another author, Prof. N. Schmidt, 
that Jesus was never addressed by the demoniacs as the 
Son of God, did not claim to be the Messiah, was not con- 
scious of a special religious mission, and was only an ex- 
alted teacher of humanism. In the same volume we are 
informed by Professor Schmidt that Paul did not write the 
second epistle to the Thessalonians, while Professor M'Gif- 
fert maintains that he did. These outspoken contradic- 
tions are multiplied in other works devoted to the teach- 
ings of the critics. 

In several, our Lord is exalted as divine, and yet, hav- 
ing come to guide us into all truth, He is said to have 
fallen into the errors of His times regarding the author- 
ship of the law, the psalms and the prophets. His mirac- 
ulous birth is discarded by some and His resurrection by 
others. We are left in the dark as to what all these mighty 
representations mean, and how it came to pass that a re- 
ligion with so much that is indefinite, illusive and mythical 
could ever have come to be regarded as veracious and 
trustworthy. In our confusion we are not surprised that 



274 THE MODEEN CKISIS IN KELIGION 

Prof. Friedrich Delitzsch has escaped from the labyrinth 
by attaining to the conviction "that there is no greater 
mistake of the human mind than the belief that the Bible 
is a personal revelation of God," and that "to be quite 
frank, beyond the revelation of God that we, each one of 
us, carry in our own conscience, we have certainly not 
deserved a further personal revelation." This is undoubt- 
edly the end of the whole matter, unless higher criticism 
pauses and takes counsel of fact and reason. Its present 
unrestrained license is leading to the suppression and anni- 
hilation of the Bible, not to its preservation and recovery. 
Professor Delitzsch is not deceived by the trend of things. 
He is perfectly honest. The Bible as a Bible is being 
buried out of sight. Bolingbroke, Chubb, Payne and 
Ingersoll dug the grave, the critics are inflicting the coup 
de grace and the funeral will follow in a little while. 

I may be asked whether I would hinder investigation? 
Not at all. I would, however, have it conditioned by rules 
that would keep men from announcing their guesses and 
speculations as ascertained facts in the name of scholar- 
ship, when on the morrow most likely their surmises will 
give place to others equally unsubstantial. Moreover, I 
would have the church take the whole matter more seri- 
ously. She is drifting along smiling optimistically, while 
teachers, claiming to be orthodox, are sapping the founda- 
tions of her faith. If she desires that it should be so, 
well. But if she does not, then she should take greater 
interest in the settlement of the issues that have been 
raised by higher criticism. Her very existence is at stake. 
She may, of course, survive as an ethical and eleemosynary 
society, but not as a church with a revelation of heavenly 
mysteries. Her fate is inextricably interwoven with the 
future of higher criticism, and is it too much to expect of 
her that she demand that it be sane, cautious, coherent 



RECOVERY OF LOST REVELATION 275 

and grounded, not in negations, but in the positive testi- 
mony of history and experience? 

In the story of which my text is part, it is set forth at 
length that the recovery of the "Book of the Law" was 
followed by a reformation. Nor can the Book in our times 
be restored without quickening the moral and spiritual life 
of the land. Here then is motive for the modern Hilkiah 
to sanctify the Temple of the living God ; for if he can 
rouse God's people to greater consecration and holiness, 
their eyes will soon be open to the real value of the Word 
and it will not long be kept from the idolatry-cursed world. 

Ruskin, writing of the Alps, has given utterance to these 
words: "The wall of granite in the heavens was the 
same" to those who had seen it in former ages and to 
those of his own age. He adds, " They have ceased to 
look upon it : you will soon cease to look also, and the 
granite wall will be for others. Then, mingled with these 
more solemn imaginations, come to the understanding of 
the gifts and glories of the Alps — the fancying forth of all 
the fountains that well from its rocky walls, the strong 
rivers that are born out of its ice, and of all the pleasant 
valleys that wind between its cliffs, and all the chalets that 
gleam among its clouds and happy farmsteads couched 
upon its pastures." 

What the Alps are to man in the field of sense and of 
beauty the Scriptures are in the domain of faith and right- 
eousness. They, too, have their sunny summits, their 
heights of purity, their tender resting-places for the weary 
soul, their retreats in the shadowy mysteries, their bubbling 
refreshing springs of heavenly joy, and their streams of 
spiritual power rising among their glorious solitudes, and 
flowing forth into the arid wilderness places of the earth. 
As they resemble the Alps in these things, so do they in 
another. They also depend upon their granite foundations 



276 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

and their granite strength penetrating and sustaining their 
multiplied beauties. Destroy the basis of rock and the 
structure of rock and the Swiss scenery would crumble and 
vanish. Let the foundations of the Bible be upturned and 
all that renders that book a joy and help to humanity will 
be swallowed up and disappear. 

What the world needs for its noblest, purest, grandest 
life is inspiration ; and as the Bible itself is the product of 
God-inspired humanity, so it in turn becomes the inspira- 
tion of humanity. There is not a ship that sails on a voy- 
age of charity whose sails are not filled with its heavenly 
breezes ; there is not an army that goes forth to antagonize 
evil that is not thrilled by its encouragements ; and there 
is not an enterprise for the alleviation of suffering and for 
the uplifting of the fallen that is not stimulated by its hu- 
manizing spirit. When it is ignored or undervalued we 
lose this impelling and exalting impulse. Many of the 
falures in the line of duty and much of the mean selfish- 
ness of the age are doubtless due to the fact that tame, 
colorless and debasing motives have been given unusual 
prominence of late. The result of this dead-levelism and 
soullessness has been indicated by M. Taine, and his 
statements reveal a grave tendency which should be 
checked. 

" We are now acquainted, not with morality but only 
with moral conditions, not with principles but only with 
facts. We explain, however, and, as has been already 
said, the mind at last accustoms itself to tolerate every- 
thing which it can explain. Modern virtue consists entirely 
in toleration. Enormous innovation ! whatever is, has, as 
far as we are concerned, a right to be." 

And this is the end of all the heroic struggles on behalf 
of right, justice, truth, and of all the thinking, suffering, 
dying for God and for righteousness, Naville at once dis- 



RECOVERY OF LOST REVELATION 277 

closes the cause and the consummation of this reversal of 
what the noblest spirits of the ages regarded as the true 
goal to be reached. He says : " Mankind is the summit 
of the universe, there is nothing higher. Mankind is God, 
if we allow that this sacred name may be used in a new 
sense. How then can mankind be judged ? In virtue of 
what law, when there is no law ? In the name of what 
right, when there is none ? Condemnation is but personal 
prejudice, the view of a narrow mind. God is not to be 
judged. He is to be described. His acts are to be recog- 
nized ; they are all to be equally honored." To this he 
adds : " The glorification of success is the first and most 
certain consequence of indifferentism, and the first thing 
to do is to render homage to victory — whatever its char- 
acter if it is really victory." 

This stage in social development we are rapidly reach- 
ing. Victory is everything. We praise, commend, extol 
it, and are not over-nice in our judgment of the means 
employed. Whether the success achieved involves the dis- 
regard of international obligations, or the prostitution of 
commercial honor, is comparatively speaking of minor 
importance. The real thing is growing more and more to 
be the success, though it involves tricky diplomacy, dis- 
reputable trading and social hypocrisy. And the explana- 
tion ? Man, while too astute to call himself God, has 
been busy making himself the centre of all things. 
Hence, virtue and toleration have become interchangeable 
terms. There is no law to judge him and whatever is is 
right. Responsibility in its higher sense is a fiction. He 
is not answerable to any one, unless it may be to the 
courts, and these can be evaded, and when evaded add to 
the prestige of the success. 

Such, then, is the natural outcome of much that is go- 
ing on about us, foretold not by preachers but by men un- 



278 THE MODERN CRISIS IN RELIGION 

prejudiced by professional bias. The inspiration to the 
truer, sweeter, broader life has been weakened, and to 
multitudes it has ceased to be a reality. Can it be re- 
vived ? That is a momentous question for our theological 
schools, our churches, and our preachers to answer. It 
must be answered and that right speedily, or the present 
drift will continue and increase in velocity. 

The inspiration can be revived, and will be, if the lost 
Bible is recovered, and will not be if the book is left to be 
buried deeper and deeper beneath the weight of conflict- 
ing theories and foolish idolatries. This then is of im- 
mense importance and cannot safely be delayed. Up, 
explorers, with pick and spade, pursue your investigations 
in ancient lands that bricks and monuments may confirm, 
as thus far they have done, God's Holy Word. Up, 
scholars, search, explore, and translate all documents that 
verify the sources of our faith. Up, saintly men and 
women, and bring your experience to the judgment seat, 
that the marvel-working power of the Sacred Book may be 
proclaimed. Up, all who love humanity, and would have 
it feel the influence that proceeds from the truth of God, 
and demand that it shall be freed from every bond that 
binds. Then the recovered Bible shall, like the Spirit 
dispelling at the beginning the chaotic void and darkness, 
breathe on the world anew the inspiration which leads to 
light, order and the triumph of the good ! Amen ! 



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